[Avodah] City named after AZ

[kennethgmiller at juno.com]

R' Simon Montagu wrote:
> I remember once an announcement in Oxford shul including
> directions to the location of a meeting. Rather than
> mention the name of the college they said something like
> "The third turning on the right after you-know-who
> you-know-what".

And yet, I don't know of anyone who refrains from pronouncing the name of that month between Sivan and Av.

I was going to ask if anyone can define the cutoff point between the objectionable and the acceptable, and then I saw that R' Zev Sero wrote:

> The chiddush here is that it's not actually an AZ at all;
> it's a college that was named for a building that was named
> for an AZ.  And yet people try to avoid naming it, because
> it just doesn't feel right.

I suspect the answer is in his last line there: It just doesn't feel right. Nowadays, no one relates "Tamuz" to avodah zara, but queasiness over "Christchurch" doesn't surprise me a bit. "El Salvador" probably depends on one's familiarity with the Spanish language.

Could it be that we're dealing with a social issue, and not a halachic one?

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
Click for free info on getting an MBA, $200K/ year potential.
http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw1UV4OYoErkYPrgPvZIWIZowtrguvhZfL2TzLKdj5WiC9Ezo/