Yes, change that name

Thursday, January 26, 2012

If you are one of those folks who think that the name Jew Pond is nothing but an historic anachronism, we hope that you read last week’s Cabinet story in which our Dean Shalhoup wrote about the pond and the Grand Hotel in Mont Vernon, which offered the pond as an amenity to guests:

“... proprietor George E. Bates ... let it be known in ads, posters and brochures, that ‘Hebrew patronage (was) not desired’.”

As we said in a previous editorial, the name Jew Pond was not created as a device to welcome Jews to town and, as one can clearly now see, certainly not to the Grand Hotel.

Last week’s story came about because Mont Vernon resident Katelyn Ann Dobbs is working on a documentary film, in part to answer the question, “Should we, as a society, pay more attention to historical names and the meaning behind them?”

The answer, we believe, is yes.

Jew Pond is a pejorative because in the 1920s, when the pond was named, the word “Jew” was not used in the same sense as the word “Protestant” or “Lutheran,” not even “Catholic,” although in some quarters, Catholics were viewed in much the same way as Jews, with hatred.

And no one should forget that not many years after Bates put up his loathsome signs the German government began its planned slaughter of Jewish people.

We are not suggesting that Mont Vernon turn its back upon history. To quote Golda Meir, one of Israel’s great prime ministers, “One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”

We agree, but there is a difference between acknowledging our past and flaunting it. Names of places are often changed. Doing so here would not be some frightening precedent.

That said, we think it appropriate that somehow the town acknowledge what had gone before rather than try to bury and forget. For instance, if the town were to authorize a plaque commemorating the name of the pond, the plaque could include:

“This pond was once known as Jew Pond, a name given during a time when, regrettably, bigotry was acceptable. That is not now the case.”