[Avodah] City named after AZ

[Zev Sero]

Dov Kay wrote:
> R. Zev Sero wrote on Areivim
>  
> <<The name change [of Bombay to Mumbai] was explicitly for the purpose 
> of honouring an AZ. Going along with it is therefore particularly bad.>>
>  
> When I was a teenager, I visited the city of Christchurch in New 
> Zealand.  Should enunciation of the name of this city be forbidden?  
> Does the fact that it has become the name of a city make a difference?

1. How are you not seeing the difference between using the original name
of a city, and going along with a change that was made for the explicit
purpose of honouring an AZ?

2. There is no AZ whose name is "Christchurch".  The city was not named
for their god, but for the college in Oxford, which was in turn named for
a church building, which was in turn named for their god.  And since they
are protestants it's at least arguable that he's not an AZ, at least as
they see him.  Not the same thing at all as using the actual name of an
AZ, which was applied to a city for the purpose of honouring it.

3. Despite all the above it is indeed proper not to use it, and those
who are careful and have a Jewish sensitivity try to avoid it.  The
shul, for instance, is called "Canterbury Hebrew Congregation".
(There's a legend, I don't know with what if any basis in fact, that
it was once called by the name of the city, until they got a rabbi who
wrote home to his family about his new job, and his family sat shiva
for him!)


-- 
Zev Sero               Something has gone seriously awry with this Court's
zev at sero.name          interpretation of the Constitution.
                       	                          - Clarence Thomas