Did you see this picture of an Orthodox Jew on an airplane, who sealed himself in a plastic bag?

For his sake, we can only hope he didn’t eat a kosher bean burrito before the flight.

He is evidently a member of the Haredi sect, and although the Haredim go to ridiculous extremes to avoid contact with women, that wasn’t the motivation in this case.

First this: the fast-growing sect is creating huge problems in Israel, where their hobbies include vandalizing advertisements and spitting on women who dare to dress normally. Actually, it’s not limited to women — there are cases of Haredim spitting on girls as young as eight. That’s right; they show their godliness by hocking loogies at little girls.

Now, about that bag. Haredi high priests are not allowed to have any contact with dead bodies. Merely walking through a graveyard is prohibited. And they extend that proscription to flying over a graveyard. The plastic bag provides magical protection from any dead-body contamination that might somehow waft up 20,000 feet and pierce the airplane’s aluminum skin.

Pilots, surprisingly, are not too thrilled with this practice. For some reason, they’ve concluded that it’s not safe for passengers to travel in an air-tight plastic bag.

Although I usually oppose acquiescing to religious superstitions, in this case I think the airlines should not just allow it, but encourage it, as long as they put one rule in place: the bag must remained completely sealed for the duration of the fight.

I suspect that eight-year-old-girls who’ve received a facefull of Haredi phlegm would agree.

[image via Digital Journal]