I just read a short article about a new restaurant that opened in India called Hitler's Cross, named after Adolf Hitler and promoted with posters showing the German leader and Nazi swastikas. India's small Jewish community, of course, is outraged.
“This place is not about wars or crimes, but where people come to relax and enjoy a meal,” said restaurant manager Fatima Kabani, adding that they were planning to turn the eatery’s name into a brand with more branches in Mumbai.
“We wanted to be different. This is one name that will stay in people’s minds,” owner Punit Shablok told Reuters. “We are not promoting Hitler. But we want to tell people we are different in the way he was different.” Different? Not the word I would use to describe Hitler, or this restaurant.
Now, seriously. I can't even comment on this creepy brand of anti-Semitism.
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Even with my sometimes-conservative sympathies, I have to admit: this makes the ugly soullessness of free markets quite evident.
Anything to make a buck, apparently.
At a literature conference last year I met a professor from India who is a Jewish literature scholar. He told me that there is actually a substantial Jewish community in India, which I found fascinating.
The India Hitler restaurant is changing its name after meeting with the local Jewish community. Thought you'd be interested. I just wish they'd said what the new name will be. http://msnbc.msn.com/id/14498419/?GT1=8404
Thanks Emby01 -- I hadn't seen that yet. Very interesting. I, too, wonder what the new name will be. It certainly (hopefully) can't be as bad as Hitler's Cross.
Luke, yes, I know that the swastika's origin is in Hinduism, and that historical truths do indeed need to be transmitted -- as you suggest -- but, it would seem that he must know something about Hitler (must have researched something, anyway) if he had decided to name a restaurant after him. But, at any rate, at least he's now agreed to change the name, and apologized to India's Jewish community. It's a start.
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