The AP reports that the “Hitler’s Cross” Restaurant in Bombay, India has for some strange reason decided to change its name.
I don’t know what it serves but I bet it doesn’t serve Jewish food:
The owner of a restaurant named after Adolf Hitler said Thursday he will change its name because it angered so many people.
Puneet Sablok said he would remove Hitler’s name and the Nazi swastika from billboards and the menu. He had said the restaurant’s name — “Hitler’s Cross” — and symbols were only meant to attract attention.
But the owner can’t be faulted for being non-reponsive:
Sablok made the decision after meeting with members of Bombay’s small Jewish community.
“Once they told me how upset they were with the name, I decided to change it,” he said. “I don’t want to do business by hurting people.”
Sablok said he had not yet decided on a new name.
How about “Joseph Goebbels’ Chambers?”
Or “Eat Eat SS”?
Hitler’s Cross opened five days ago and serves pizza, salad and pastries in Navi Mumbai, a suburb of Bombay, also known as Mumbai.
I’d be afraid at eating at a restaurant named after Hitler.
I’d be afraid that I’d get gas.
Te AP goes on to say that Bombay’s Jewish community (which has about 4,500 of India’s 5,500 Jews) has welcomed Sablok’s decision, and it quotes “a [Jewish] community leader” as saying: “Some people have wrong conceptions of history and he realized it was not appropriate.” Sablok insists he never wanted to hurt anyone, and as the AP notes:
Some Indians regard Hitler as just another historical figure and have little knowledge about the Holocaust, in which 6 million European Jews were systematically killed during World War II.
The swastika symbol, which was appropriated by the Nazis, was originally an ancient Hindu symbol and it is displayed all over India to bring luck.
Just to help out businessmen and businesswomen, here are a few titles of businesses that might not bring in the big bucks:
Temple Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
Michael Jackson Daycare
Mel Gibson Bagel Co.
George Allen Fine Indian Food
Tom Cruise Psychiatric Group
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.