A renowned Jewish scholar was stopped at JFK Airport by suspicious TSA screeners who interrogated her and searched her bags after they saw her reading a Jewish periodical with a conservative editorial stance, according to a published account.
Phyllis Chesler, 72, a noted academic and professor who has written extensively about anti-Semitism, honor killings and feminist issues, says the incident occurred Wednesday after her planned flight to Florida was cancelled and she began reading The Jewish Press, according to an account in that newspaper.
Chesler griped that after she was stopped, another woman who appeared to be a Muslim – she was wearing a niqab, or an Islamic head covering that hides a woman’s entire face except for her eyes – was able to continue on to her destination without being detained.
“Chesler noticed that as soon as she took out the paper [The Jewish Press], one of the security agents looked at her sharply,” the Jewish Press’ account notes.
“He came over and asked to see her newspaper. After looking at the cover, the agent then took The Jewish Press and brought it over to another security agent. The two agents then had a discussion, apparently about the newspaper and about Chesler. She was then told to open her luggage, which the agents proceeded to search,” The Jewish Press’ account states.
It was while Chesler’s luggage was being “rifled through and she was being interrogated” that she purportedly noticed the woman wearing the niqab passing by without being stopped, The Jewish Press’ account states.
Chesler could not be reached for comment.
“Every passenger regardless of race, color, national origin, sex, religion, age, sexual orientation or disability deserves to be treated with dignity and respect and the TSA policy upholds this standard,” a spokesman for the TSA said.
“Each day at John F. Kennedy International Airport, TSA sceens on average more than 70,000 passengers of a variety of ethnicities and religions.”
Chesler was let go without any charges, but a local law enforcement official said Chesler’s treatment was potentially troubling.
“If this incident proves true, then it seems typical of the TSA not knowing what they are doing,” the source said.
“It’s simply TSA over-stepping their boundaries. If they had suspicions about this woman, they should have contacted local law enforcement authorities, the Port Authority Police Department, and let them handle it.”
Chesler was raised in an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn, but as an 18-year-old college student she met and wound up marrying Abdul-Kareem, a young Muslim man from a wealthy Afghan family.
She union proved nearly disastrous – after moving to Afghanistan with her husband, she remained a virtual prisoner there for five months and became so ill with dysentery that she nearly died before managing to escape.
That episode in her life was detailed in her memoir “An American Bride in Kabul,” about which The Post interviewed her in August.