Jew in a Bag
Gilad Atzmon: Ynet reported [last Monday] on this interesting incident of a Haredi Jewish passenger photographed wrapped in large plastic bag during flight. The [man] doesn't like to be in proximity to women or Goyim, let alone Goyim women i.e. Shiktzes. He is religiously thrilled by this unique and original form of self imposed isolation. Ynet suggests that the man in the bag was an Israeli combat pilot at an earlier stage of his life. I assume that dropping bombs on innocent people leaves a deep scar in the chosen's soul.
[Ynet News] The New York Daily News later explained that the man was a Kohen, a descendant of the Jewish priests who presided over the Temple, and as the aircraft flew over a cemetery he covered himself in a plastic bag so he could remain pure. Under Jewish law, Kohanim are banned from going near cemeteries. The Kohen, formerly a secular Jew who embraced Orthodox Judaism and asked to remain anonymous, told Ynet of his long service in the Israel Defense Forces, where he held sensitive posts. In 1983, as a show of appreciation, the Air Force commander gave him the "opportunity to study in a yeshiva at the expense of the Air Force, which paid my salary for the two and a half years I studied in the yeshiva." The photo was the subject of public criticism and was shared and condemned on social networks. Rabbi Yosef Brook, head of the Netivot Olam Yeshiva and the passenger's rabbi, criticized the media coverage of the photo and the public reaction to it, saying: "I am convinced that none of those who reacted is at (the Kohen's) personal or intellectual level." [The] critics are primitives.