Rabbi Charges Boac Cancelled Kosher Meal to Avoid Incident Upon Landing in Cairo

A New York rabbinical leader has to date received no reply to his March 24 letter to the British Overseas Airways Corporation office here protesting the cancellation of his kosher meal because his plane was to stop off in Cairo. Rabbi Israel Mowshowitz, chairman of the International Synagogue and chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the New York Board of Rabbis, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that on his March 6 flight from Ceylon to Singapore he was told that his pre-arranged kosher food had been removed from the London-originating plane flight prior to landing at Cairo to avoid an “incident.” Rabbi Mowshowitz said the apologetic stewardess had shown him a flight manual stating such a policy. In his letter, the rabbi called the decision “ridiculous” and told the British airline that an Egyptian would be “insulted” at his own government for taking such a position. A public relations spokesman for BOAC here said he had not heard of the development, adding that BOAC made two daily stops at Cairo and that the pre-arranged-kosher-meal policy still stood. He said he had probably not been informed by BOAC in London because it “is important to a group of people but is not of major importance.”