Just hours after Misaskim issued an advisory at the behest of the Karlsburger Rov, Rabbi Yechezkel Roth, warning kohanim of a change in handling that invalidated a heter allowing them to fly on El Al flights out of JFK that were transporting niftarim, the airline has taken positive steps that will rectify the situation in a matter of days.
Misaskim founder and director Rabbi Yanky Meyer was contacted by a high ranking El Al official on Wednesday night who was completely unaware of the situation that affected kohanim. After investigating the matter, he determined that it wasn’t an intentional change in policy but rather the airline had run out of the special boxes that were used to encase aronos, which created the problem that prompted the Rabbi Roth to rescind the heter that had given kohanim the ability to take El Al flights carrying niftarim.
El Al is expecting a new shipment of boxes to arrive within 24 hours and no niftarim will be transported out of JFK until after Shabbos. A second shipment of boxes is due to arrive next week and the airline will keep an emergency supply of approximately two dozen boxes in Misaskim’s warehouse in case any further shortages occur.
“We are very grateful to El Al for its prompt response to this problem,” said Meyer. “It is clear that they take our community’s concerns very seriously and we look forward to a follow up meeting with them and Rabbi Roth next week to ensure that all of the relevant issues are being properly addressed.”
What about El AL flights from Newark? These flights were supposed to always be free of Niftarim. Has this policy changed?
I know someone who spoke to Reb Pinches Mandel many years ago about these boxes . He said that there was no hashgocha whether the boxes were used or used properly ,so even if you rely on the heter of the box , you are relying on the goyishe cargo workers to do it every time and do it properly and he has seen cases where the workers were lazy and didn’t do it properly . As you can see from this story , there is no guarantee of this being done consistently as most people would demand some hasgocho if this was a shailoh of kosher or non kosher food . Not saying you can or can’t rely on it halichacly,but these are the facts at least as if a while back.