Okay, guys, here's the opinion of someone who actually works in the business. I started off as a flight attendant and worked my way up in the industry. When I was working as cabin crew Orthodox Jewish men were notoriously known for creating problems such as refusing to seat next to women or blocking the aisles while praying. It was before 9/11 so safety regulations were not as strict and it was extremely difficult and time consuming to solve these problems. It was also before people paid extra money for specific seats on board which gives them more legroom, or some other advantage. In the old days it was relatively easy to sort out the seat swapping issues. Our biggest problem back then was to get them to sit down and stop blocking the aisles while meal service was underway. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "You're only doing this because I'm Jewish". It gets really old, really fast.
Nowadays people get to choose their seats at the time of reservation and some people chose to pay more money at that time to get a specific kind of seat. There is no way in hell that they're going to give up that seat for any reason. The promise of a refund will not make any difference, they want the seat they paid for and most people will not budge, understandably so.
As to the OP, this happened on an EL-AL flight. Orthodox Jews and Jews in general tend to favor this airline for obvious reasons. Non-Orthodox Jews are getting as sick and tired of the Orthodox Jews' behavior as everyone else is. I'm not at all surprised this happened and I can tell you it will keep happening as airlines will keep making people pay extra for every damn thing. On some airlines, we're up to the point where it can cost up to a 100 extra bucks to book a specific seat on board. Add to that the additional stress involved in airline travel these days and you get people that are at the end of their rope by the time they finally take their seats on board the aircraft. Physical assaults on cabin crew and ground staff are at an all time high across the industry.
I know for a fact that cabin crew do their utmost to solve these sorts of problems as quickly as possible, because today more than ever an on time departure is absolutely essential, or the aircraft loses its departure slot and gets booted to the back of the queue by air traffic control. My personal opinion is that it doesn't matter who you are or what religion you are, if you create a disturbance on board to the point of significantly delaying take off you should be escorted off the plane. End of.
