Salma* was taken aback when her manager sent a message to the staff WhatsApp group instructing employees to acknowledge a ban on speaking Arabic in their shop.
The 19-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel and her colleagues thought it was absurd and ignored it.
"But the next day we were frightened of her and tried to stay silent," she told Middle East Eye.
The silence did not last.
One colleague briefly spoke in Arabic while saying she was taking a box to the storeroom, even using the Hebrew word for "storeroom", making it clear she was talking about work.
The manager erupted.
"She started shouting, kicking boxes and telling us we were forbidden to speak Arabic," Salma recalled.
"She told us: 'This is a Jewish state. Here we speak only Hebrew. Arabic stays at home.'"
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