"You'll have to change Zion's name - it's too Jewish"

So said my neighbour Mrs. Butinski one day last week. We were chatting with another neighbour so all I said was "Zion is also used in the Christian tradition".

But I could not let it go. I saw her the next morning and blindsided her by asking "when did you last go to Mass?"  She is a very lapsed Catholic. She shrugged as if to say "it's so long ago that I can't remember".

"Well" I said, "you probably should go to Mass to learn how Zion is also used in Christianity".

Then I asked "Did you like M. and S. (two Jewish neighbours who have now moved away) or were they too Jewish for you?"

Of course she said that she liked them. So I had to ask her what she meant by too Jewish.

I went on to say that I did not ask for her opinion about my dog's name, neither did I value it.  Then I added "and I found your words to be deeply offensive".

We do not have to dig deep to uncover antisemitism. It is utterly reprehensible.

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Mt. Zion, Jerusalem.

A WORD ABOUT ZION.

It was probably a Canaanite/ Jebusite hill fortress (Tysion?) which King David conquered, there to establish his royal palace. 

1. It is lauded in the Psalms. Psalm 87:2–3 

 “The Lord loves the gates of Zion / more than all the other dwellings of Jacob. / Glorious things are said of you, / city of God.”

2. Following the destruction of Jerusalem by the 

Romans, and the teaching that "Christianity" had 

replaced Judaism,  "Zion" becomes the name for the 
new and heavenly Jerusalem.

We have not come to Mount Sinai, says the apostle, but “to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22). Pete refers to Christ as the Cornerstone of Zion: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame” (1 Peter 2:6).

(Hence Christian hymns such as "Glorious things of thee are spoken, Zion, City of our God", or "We're marching to Zion, the beautiful city of God".

3. In the Mormon tradition  at the Millienium  "Zion" will be the name of a physical City to be established in Independence, Missouri (the first home of Mormons before persecution and violence drove them west-ward to Utah).

(Hence "Zion Bank" and  "Zion National Park"  in Utah)

4. "Zionism" is the name of a movement envisioned by the Austrian Theodor Herzl in 1897.  He was a secular and "assimilated" Jew who became utterly disturbed by the anti-semitism (ever present in Austria), and by the Dreyfus affair.

Herzl dreamed of a Jewish homeland in Palestine (hence "Zionism")

( Before I get torn about "Zionism", plrase note that I am creating a historical narrative, not a political comment!)