The woman from the tefillin video at Ben-Gurion Airport which caused a storm on social networks is Prof. Pnina Peri, wife of Yoram Peri, a professor of sociology who served as president of the New Israel Fund between 1999-2001.



In a telephone conversation with Ben Zigdon and Amir Ivgi, Peri claimed that he was "busy and did not hear about the incident," but confirmed that his wife left the country in the morning, Channel 20 reported.



Pnina Peri has served as a senior lecturer in the Department of Liberal Arts of Sapir Academic College and in Levinsky Teachers' training college. She is an expert in multicultural theories and is known to have published books such as "Education in Multi-Cultured Society: Pluralism and Congruence Among Cultural Divisions."

The Peri family has been living for the past few years in Maryland, to where Pnina Peri was flying from Ben-Gurion International Airport yesterday when she verbally assaulted a Chabad Hasid who asked another Jew to put on tefillin. Today, she serves as head of the Joseph and Alma Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland.



In the video posted on Facebook yesterday by Gad Kaufman, he wrote: "An amazing incident took place this morning at the airport, when I was politely asked by a Chabad man if I wanted to put on tefillin? I said yes, and then a woman with a crazy look jumped up and started cursing, harassing and disturbing! It is really shameful that being a Jew in this country means being persecuted by the leftist Bohemian. If I were a Muslim or a Christian, would it be more legitimate for her ...? "