JustASC

London’s Jewish Chronicle published my thoughts on the Tefillin Bomber:

And then a funny thing happened — call it The Revenge of the Schmucks. At some point, readers and the media started to agree that the authorities had acted reasonably under the circumstances. A few Orthodox web commentators even turned on poor Calev for using poor judgment in whipping out his tefillin mid-flight.

We snickered when the Philadelphia police spokesman referred to the boy’s “olfactories”, but that only proved his point when he said: “It was unfamiliarity that caused this.”