An Israeli café chain has banned workers at one of its branches from speaking Arabic on the grounds that customers find it “threatening”.
According to a report in Haaretz, a shift manager at Café Café claimed that the ban was instituted “after two Arab employees, a man and woman, were speaking Arabic in front of a customer, who thought the two were laughing at her and took offense.”
Sawan Zaher, an attorney at Adalah, the legal rights centre, has written to the café, stating that a “ban on using a mother tongue that is the language of the Arab population, a national minority group in Israel” is “patently illegal.”
Zaher informed Café Café that telling employees “that anyone who does not want to accept your decision should resign” means its workers are being employed under conditions of a threat to end their employment”, illegal and insulting conditions.
Adalah said it has had no response to its letter.