(JTA) — A Polish champion horse entered in an Arizona horse show has offended some local Jewish residents because his name, Pogrom, refers to anti-Jewish attacks.
The 3-year-old colt was entered to compete in the Scottsdale Arabian Horse Show, which ends Sunday. He is being leased from the Polish government to Scottsdale’s Midwest Training Centre and Sloan Arabians, the Arizona Republic reported.
Pogrom is the 2011 Polish national champion.
Scottsdale resident Nettie Sacks, 79, whose mother left Poland for the United States following a 1916 pogrom, was quoted in the Republic as saying the name hit her "like a lightning strike."
“To me, the word means when the Polish peasants formed a group and they called it a pogrom and they went to all the little villages to find the Jews and kill them all,” Sacks said.
The horse’s name, based on the Polish language interpretation of the word, was meant to mean “an invincible leader; one who fights and wins,” according to the newspaper.
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