Flying The Jewish-Unfriendly Skies

Saudi Arabian Airlines has joined Delta's Skyteam alliance, raising fears that the US airliner might be contaminated by the Saudi state's anti-Jewish visa policy.

The uproar calls to mind a favorite anecdote.

My father and my late mother visited to Oman in the late 1980s. The homeward flight connected in Saudi Arabia, where they were required to fill out a disembarkation card. The card asked for religion.

My father worried that if he answered truthfully, "Jewish," they would be refused entry and would miss their connection. On the other hand, he did not want to deny his own identity. He pondered for a minute and then wrote the single word "Protest." He meant that he protested the question. But he could not exclude the possibility that the Saudis might misread the answer as an abbreviation for "Protestant."

Anyway, my parents made their connection.