The locker room at my local swimming pool was unusually crowded on Saturday morning and the old-timers were looking for someone to blame. Someone said it was because of \u201cthose people from the university\u201d \u2013 apparently their pool was closed for repairs and they invaded ours. Someone else said \u201chow dare they,\u201d until a third woman tried to make peace, declaring: \u201cThe pool belongs to everyone, whether new or old.\u201d \u00a0Even though I\u2019ve lived in the neighborhood for 21 years and am a heavy user of our sports facilities, I still wasn\u2019t sure where I fit in: I am not part of the gaggle of elderly ladies who seem to go back together many decades; I only know a few faces and fewer names, and rarely exchange more than a polite hello and a smile. I wondered if they considered me \u201cnew\u201d or \u201cold.\u201d I think they weren\u2019t sure either, and the test was whether I would express solidarity with their group. While I was changing into my bathing suit I stayed out of it, but when I came back after a refreshing swim I discovered passions were even higher.<\/p>\n

It was even more crowded. Some of the population had changed while some of the same ladies were still working on their hair and nails, but now there was a new common cause. It started innocently: \u201cShe\u2019s been in there for a long time, hasn\u2019t she. What\u2019s going on there?\u201d one woman asked nobody in particular. \u201cI know. She\u2019s been showering for 20 minutes or something. We would never take a shower for more than three or four minutes.\u201d There was collective agreement. \u201cWe\u201d would never do such a thing. \u201cShe must be a foreigner,\u201d said another. \u201cIf she were one of us she would know better.\u201d A discussion began over which water-rich country this water guzzler was from; surely if she were \u201cone of us\u201d she would know Israel is suffering from a water shortage and not wasting water is one of the highest forms of patriotism.<\/p>\n

The tone of conversation was rising to an angry panic, until someone couldn\u2019t stand it anymore and went to the shower stall and called through the curtain: \u201cWhat kind of long shower is that? Enough already.\u201d The stunned addressee called back sheepishly, \u201cOh, is somebody waiting?\u201d And was answered with a curt: \u201cNo, nobody\u2019s waiting, but you can\u2019t take such a long shower. You\u2019re wasting water.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the vanguard came back and reported: \u201cShe\u2019s a foreigner. She looks Japanese.\u201d I knew this meant \u201cshe has Asian features but I have no idea what ethnic group she\u2019s from,\u201d but in today\u2019s isolated, xenophobic Israel you can still sound like you are in the U.S. in the 1960\u2019s, before cultural sensitivity and political correctness. It is also completely acceptable to make racial slurs openly in a crowd of people, without anyone pointing out that as a descendant of Jews who suffered for generations because of their minority status you should know better.<\/p>\n

A woman getting dressed next to me tried to enlist me: \u201cYou can tell she\u2019s a foreigner. One of us would never take such a long shower and waste Israel\u2019s water.\u201d Undoubtedly, there is a plot underway by foreigners to use up our country\u2019s water, she implied, waiting for my approval. I couldn\u2019t help noticing that these high-minded environmentalists, so concerned about our natural resources, are the same people who in the summer insist the windows of the gym stay open while the air conditioner runs even when it\u2019s 40 degrees centigrade outside, \u201cso it won\u2019t be stuffy.\u201d While toweling myself off I tried to de-escalate. \u201cIf she\u2019s a foreigner she might not know about our local rules and problems,\u201d I tried, \u201cbut I\u2019m sure she\u2019ll learn.\u201d My neighbor gave me a dirty look and turned away, but I saw another young woman flash me a smile of support. I was definitely \u201cnew.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was still a few minutes until the \u201cJapanese\u201d lady got out of the shower, during which the women could talk about nothing else but her impertinent wastefulness. Out of nowhere sprung\u00a0a consensus\u00a0that she be reported to the management and barred from using the pool.\u00a0When she did emerge,\u00a0the woman\u00a0was showered with scorn. I wanted to go up to her and offer some compassion, but was relieved to see someone else talking to her gently in the corner, explaining what the uproar was about. I wasn\u2019t sure if those were tears in her eyes or just redness from the pool. But I felt deeply disturbed by the ease at which a random group of people who happened to show up at the swimming pool at the same time turned into a lynch mob. All the rules of \u201cin\u201d and \u201cout\u201d group psychology kicked in instantly, from the presumed superiority of the in group to the shared hostility towards anyone outside of it.<\/p>\n

On my way out I passed two of the defenders of the pool and Israel\u2019s honor, complaining to the receptionist about the foreigner who was trying to use up Israel\u2019s water. In that\u00a0context it didn\u2019t matter that the receptionist was an Arab; as an employee of the pool he was still \u201cone of ours.\u201d As long as he doesn\u2019t try to rent an apartment in our neighborhood or date one of our daughters.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I felt deeply disturbed by the ease at which a random group of people turned into a lynch mob. All the rules of \u201cin\u201d and \u201cout\u201d group psychology kicked in instantly, from the presumed superiority of the in group to the shared hostility towards anyone outside of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[582,109,127,229,230],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1297"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2665,"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1297\/revisions\/2665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.didyoulearnanything.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}