back to article Spanish village called 'Kill the Jews' mulls rebranding exercise

Residents in the Spanish village of Castrillo* Matajudíos (Castrillo Kill the Jews) will vote on Saturday on whether it's time to change the name of their small hamlet in the province of Burgos to something a little less offensive. Castrillo Matajudios as seen on Street View A sign of the old times: Castrillo Matajudíos as …

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  1. T. F. M. Reader

    14th century?

    I saw this reported elsewhere a few days ago and decided to see what spin El Reg [sic!] would put on the story. Not bad, overall, more details (I'd say, amusing, were it not for the context) than in mainstream British press. Much experience in Barrio Humedo, Lester?

    However, it does seem that a 3 day calendar mistake by Co-op Bank is really not a big deal for your editors, at least under the influence of limonada: "until the Jews were expelled from Spain in the 14th century"- surely you mean the 15th century, eh? 1492, maybe?

    Or were the good people of Castrillo Matajudíos really a century ahead of times?

    1. Jim 59

      Re: 14th century?

      Hi Register you have come close to commemorating Good Friday by publishing a story that could, to an unsympathetic eye, appear designed to provoke sectarian divisions in order to generate clicks. Being a long term fan of both Haines and El Reg, I know this is the last thing you would want to do. I hope your advertisers see it in the same way.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: 14th century? @Jim 59

        I'm sure the advertisers, like most of us, see Good Friday as nothing more than a day off work.

    2. P. Lee
      FAIL

      Re: 14th century?

      > Or were the good people of Castrillo Matajudíos really a century ahead of times?

      Not the council it would seem, having picked the Sabbath for the election day, when all good Jews would be at the synagogue and would not go to vote.

  2. frank ly

    Village?

    "Spanish Village...", "... their small hamlet ..."

    Is it a village or a hamlet? Note: If it doesn't have a pub/bar, it's only a hamlet.

    1. Lester Haines (Written by Reg staff) Gold badge

      Re: Village?

      If I ever get down to that neck of the woods, I'll report back on its bar status.

      1. Robin

        Re: Village?

        I've lived in Spain for five years and I've yet to encounter anywhere that doesn't have a bar. Maybe I need to explore more!

        1. Mephistro
          Angel

          Re: Village?

          ...and I've yet to encounter anywhere that doesn't have a bar. Maybe I need to explore more!

          I'd suggest you to try with Spanish cemeteries. Remarkably few of them have a bar inside, and some of them don't even have one in a 20 meters radius!

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Village? @Robin

          You need to get out more, there are plenty of villages that don't have bars.

          As for Castrillo Matajudios, I passed within 5Km of there about 8 times last week but as I was on holiday and left all technology behind wasn't aware of this thread. However I generally pass nearby two or three times a month so might stop off.

    2. Rob Crawford

      Re: Village?

      Actually in the UK it's the lack of a church that defines a hamlet.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Village?

        Which is interesting only because just a few years ago the Council discovered that our area, St. Peter's, doesn't have a church because it was demolished many years ago. So they've now taken it off our official address without assigning a new name. We are now an anonymous hamlet surrounded by other hamlets that actually have names.

        1. frank ly

          @Rob Crawford Re: Village?

          As a teetotal non-believer, I always get confused about the church/pub thing. As far as I can see, they are both places where people go to worship, take part in rituals and celebrate something. You're probably right.

          1. phil dude
            Coat

            Re: @Rob Crawford Village?

            Al murray probably explained it in one of his sermons.....

            P.

          2. Otto is a bear.

            Re: @Rob Crawford Village?

            As a drinker and a believer, I'd like to say, I get confused as well, but drinking is mandatory in my faith.

      2. Paul Hovnanian Silver badge

        Re: Village?

        "lack of a church"

        You worship in your way, I'll do so in mine. Cheers.

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Village?

        > Actually in the UK it's the lack of a church that defines a hamlet.

        Same thing.

      4. hplasm
        Happy

        Re: Village?

        Isn't a hamlet a baconated piglet?

  3. Getriebe

    No Bar!!

    The very concept of a Spanish collection of houses without a bar is a defect against God!

    Of course it has a bar.

    Where I go in Spain, in the mountains in the north, I often roll up to a village with a church, about 6 house some cows and about 8 inhabitants. But it does have a bar.

    Mota, a hill, mmmm, a bit of an exaggeration - maybe a small rise in the ground.

    1. Ivan Headache

      Re: No Bar!!

      And at least a half-dozen shoe shops.

      1. Michael Habel

        Re: No Bar!!

        And at least a half-dozen shoe shops...

        Thanks now I'll have the 11'th fit in my head all day...

        Shoe Event Horizon

        The foundation of the Shoe Event Horizon theory is that when depressed, people tend to look down, and when they look down, they see their shoes. To cheer themselves up, they might buy themselves a new pair. Thus, in a generally depressed society, demand for shoes will rise.

        In the critical condition, demand for shoes rises faster than the capacity to make good quality footwear. As shoe quality decreases, the demand increases further because shoes wear out faster and need to be replaced more often; as the demand for shoes increases, cheap mass production causes shoe quality to drop even more. What results is a spiral of increasing shoe demand and decreasing shoe quality. Eventually, this destabilizes the economy to the point where it is "no longer economically viable to build anything other than shoe shops", and planetary society collapses.

        This was likely what led to the downfall of Planet Kepler 186F...

    2. joeW

      Re: No Bar!!

      I grew up in rural Ireland. The village consisted of 6 houses and 3 pubs.

      Sadly, that ratio was skewed by the building boom of the early '00s. There's now 12 houses and 3 pubs - still no shop or church.

  4. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Mushroom

    Hopefully El Reg will continue the theme and publish an article about Matamoros ("Kill the arabs" or "arab killer") in Mexico. Matamoros is also a Spanish last name.

    Can't be seen to show favouritism, after all.

    1. Number6

      Only if the place decides to consider changing its name.

      Perhaps the Austrian town of Fucking would also consider changing its name to stop amused Brits from stealing their town signs.

      1. Mephistro
        Coat

        @ Number6

        "Perhaps the Austrian town of Fucking would also consider changing its name to stop amused Brits from stealing their town signs."

        They are already doing that!. They're going to change the name to 'Screwing".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      >Matamoros is also a Spanish last name

      Mujeriego is surname that always amuses me. Great boasting rights amongst your mates but I would have thought a hell of a problem when trying to get a date.

  5. Winkypop Silver badge
    Facepalm

    This message brought to you by religion

    Because what harm could it cause?

    1. Vociferous

      Re: This message brought to you by religion

      The inofficial motto of all successful religions has at some point in history been "Travel to Exotic Lands, Meet Unusual People, Forcibly Convert or Kill Them".

      1. JDX Gold badge

        Re: This message brought to you by religion

        Presumably since Christianity and many other religions actually originated in the East, by "exotic lands" you mean Europe?

        1. Tromos

          @JDX Re: This message brought to you by religion

          The clue is in the root "exo" meaning away from or out. While most reg readers would undoubtedly class expansive white sand beaches with palm trees as exotic, to an inhabitant of Tahiti it would be something like East Grinstead.

      2. Peter Simpson 1
        Devil

        Re: This message brought to you by religion

        And, if you can't afford to travel, choose from among your neighbors, and torture/kill them. Extra points for selecting those of differing beliefs and/or skin color. Make sure to remind them that if they convert to your religion, you'll still kill them, but they'll go to heaven.

        // it's not the "religion" part, it's the "organized" part that's the problem.

        1. Jim 59

          Re: This message brought to you by religion

          it's not the "religion" part, it's the "organized" part that's the problem.

          Darned right. Which is why I went to the disorganised church today. First off, half the congregation were facing the wrong way, then the priest started off reading his dry cleaning list before the PA system broke down, people were bumping into each other on roller skates, somebody was throwing confetti for some reason and then a big bag of flour fell onto--

          1. h4rm0ny
            Thumb Up

            Re: This message brought to you by religion

            >>"Darned right. Which is why I went to the disorganised church today. First off, half the congregation were facing the wrong way, then the priest started off fnordreading his dry cleaning list before the PA system broke down, people were bumping into each other on roller skates, somebody was throwing confetti for some reason and then a big bag of flour fell onto--"

            Ah, I see you are another Discordian. Hail Eris!

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: This message brought to you by religion

        > The inofficial motto of

        While an atheist, I am sufficiently well acquainted with a number of Abrahamic religions (and have a passing and very rusty academic knowledge of pre-Abrahamic polytheist Middle Eastern and Indo-European creeds) to confidently assert that the statement above is patently false.

        As for people showing inter-group hostility, the poster above has provided us with a good example of that being a general, primitive, behavioural characteristic. Besides, a belief system is a belief system regardless of what you call it. You can even call it atheism and there will always be a twat who thinks subscribing to that is somehow better than the rest.

        Make your choice, then live and let live.

        Yours,

        A somewhat tolerant atheist.

        1. Vociferous

          Re: This message brought to you by religion

          > While an atheist, I am sufficiently well acquainted with a number of Abrahamic religions (and have a passing and very rusty academic knowledge of pre-Abrahamic polytheist Middle Eastern and Indo-European creeds) to confidently assert that the statement above is patently false.

          Could you provide me with some examples of these religions which are successful and have never gone through a "convert the heathens by the sword" phase?

    2. Don Jefe

      @ Winkypoop

      Blaming death and destruction on religion is like blaming poor people for your not being rich, government for stifling business or Jews for the plague. It's Humans who are the problem.

      The moment you say it's 'religion' you're giving credence to the idea that a supernatural being is in fact taking away the free will of the Humans every God is supposed to have given free will to. That's what religion is you know, or at least a HUGE component of them all. It's a god giving Humans free will and 'testing' them by seeing how well they can manage having the ability to reason and plan instead of acting instinctively.

      You'd know that if you actually participated in or studied any religion before embarrassing yourself by popping off with shit you are obviously completely unknowledgeable about. Blaming anything other than people for any act perpetrated by people is cowardly at best and dangerously stupid at worst.

      Regardless of how a person 'believes' about religion not a single one of them supports the idea that Humans aren't responsible for their own actions. So much so that they all have special penalties for acting 'against Man' and using their god to hide behind. The same people that commit atrocities in the name of god are nothing more than the 'other team' of ignorant asshats no different than someone blaming religion for the actions of others. It's pure fucking premeditated ignorance, and that's the problem.

      Ignorance. Willful premeditated ignorance and acting on it with absolutely no fucking idea what they're/you're talking about. So thanks, jackass. Thanks for adding your own special brand of uselessness to the world. Your mindset of emotionally driven intellectual vapidity is absolutely no different than the people killing innocents in the name of god. I suggest you consider that over the weekend. Who do you want to be? Right now you're in the same camp as the people celebrating successful necromancy and the domination of Earth by an undead Semitic tradesmen by ritually hiding chocolate in brightly colored plastic eggs and cannibalism and ghost worship; horribly misguided and totally out of your depth.

      1. Grikath

        @ Don Jefe

        Yes, ultimate it's always humans.

        Problem is in the big, fat Institution called "religion" that poisons said humans' minds since whenever the first paddo-tripper invented the Sky Fairy.

        I suggest you get off your high horse, and study some medieval european history. It's got Religion in it, in rather large doses. Especially the more bloody bits. And the stuff that still shows the scars after 6 centuries have past.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: @ Don Jefe - @Grikath

          Then your medieval history books are very out of date. Nowadays, historians look at the economics and the political networks that resulted in the European wars. Follow the money and the family alliances.

          Religion is a convenient label and a way of getting people into a place where they can be indoctrinated by politicians. If, for instance, you really think that Ian Paisley did what he did because of his Protestantism, you are pretty naive. Religion in Northern Ireland is purely used to provide a post hoc justification for the oppression of one group of people by another.

          1. P. Lee

            Re: @ Don Jefe - @Grikath

            > Religion in Northern Ireland is purely used to provide a post hoc justification for the oppression of one group of people by another.

            +5 To Insight

            Constantine was already at war before his "conversion." Europeans were quite happily killing each other long before they were "Christian." Christianity was used as a justification in Europe for the wars the rulers indulged in despite Jesus himself is quoted as saying, "My kingdom isn't of this world" when asked if he was angling to be the next king of Israel. Trying to "take the holy land" in his name seems to have missed the point somewhat.

            Despite the "christian" appellation taken Bush, Blair & co, there is nothing Christ-like in their Middle Eastern adventuring or their domestic policies - it's just the politics of greed.

            Of course some religions do have violence written into their DNA - either through their theology or the behaviour of their founders. Other religions have gods who behave like people with super-powers. They don't really engender better behaviour nor do they offer any hope of justice, mercy or an answer to the problem of death.

            It appears to me that the focus on the word of God drove literacy in Europe - initially among the monks/monasteries then universities, driving maths, science (history), unraveling the mysteries - which gave us far more efficient ways of killing each other. It turns out we are all tainted by badness - no-one is perfect. What we need is someone to demonstrate how to beat death and give us a compelling logical reason to be nice to each other. That sounds like a worthy goal.

          2. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: @ Don Jefe - @Grikath

            'fraid so.

            If you look at medievil pogroms there's a sequence that runs;

            Christians not allowed to lend money for interest, make the Jews lend money instead, avoid paying back the loans, whip up the mob, hand out the burning torches, no need to pay back the loan.

        2. Jim 59

          Re: @ Don Jefe

          To all those blaming "religion" for all badness, you might as well blame shoes. Shoes have been present at every atrocity, and have enabled every evil act, have they not ? Failing that, perhaps blame science, which gave us the hydrogen bomb. Or blame engineering, without which we would not have the machine gun, tank, warship, or Exocete missile. No. We fall to evil becuase we are human beings, that's all. Accept it, and stop trying to pass all the blame to some vague external agency.

          1. nemo omnibus

            Re: @ Don Jefe

            You neglect to mention the evils of sandals....

            Having said that, I have never heard of a war being started because of a "my shoes are better than yours" mentality.

            We are talking about human beings and human wars so anyone saying that it is human beings that are the root cause are correct. However even human beings need an excuse, real or imagined.

            So I would re-phrase the comments about religion and say that religion has been the excuse for a lot of bloodshed in human history. The light that needs to be spread is the realization that religion is just that, an excuse. If we take away an excuse, of course another one will come along but take away all excuses and then, just maybe, people will stop - I live in hope.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @ Winkypoop @Don Jefe

        Three downvotes so far for a post which, if a little intemperate, is spot on.

        If it wasn't religion, it would be football. Or skin colour. Or the pronunciation of shibboleth. In my case, I am totally unprejudiced against all human beings other than those mindless bastards who drive Audis.

        At bottom it comes down to our evolution as a social animal which congregates into small tribes which compete with others for resources. How do you recognise the others? What, those idiots who put pigeon feathers in their penis shields instead of duck feathers, like all normal people?

        Look at the Anglican church. All shades of sanity from the nice Guardian-reading ladies in the WI collecting money for relief of Syrian refugees, to demented Ugandans who want to kill all gay people and Muslims. It isn't the religion; its the progressiveness or backwardness of your upbringing.

        Which brings me neatly to the present case; living in a village called "Kill the Jews" suggests to me people who don't get out a lot and probably wouldn't know anti-Semitism if it parked its Tigers on the lawn and started handing out copies of Mein Kampf, rather than rabid anti-Semites who regret the passing of the last Pope. But really someone from outside should have leaned on them years ago.

        1. TheVogon

          Re: @ Winkypoop @Don Jefe

          "I am totally unprejudiced against all human beings other than those mindless bastards who drive Audis."

          What's wrong with the Royal Family?

          1. hplasm
            Alien

            Re: @ Winkypoop @Don Jefe

            "What's wrong with the Royal Family?"

            That's a whole new kettle of worms.

      3. Winkypop Silver badge
        Facepalm

        @ Don Jefe

        S L O W

        H A N D C L A P.....

        Oh the irony...

      4. Michael Habel

        Re: @ Winkypoop

        Blaming death and destruction on religion is like blaming poor people for your not being rich, government for stifling business or Jews for the plague. It's Humans who are the problem.

        A once great comedian once said...

        Hey, if you read history, you realize that God is one of the leading causes of death. Has been for thousands of years. Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians all taking turns killing each other 'cause God told them it was a good idea. The sword of God, the blood of the lamb, vengeance is mine. Millions of dead motherf**kers. Millions of dead motherf**kers all because they gave the wrong answer to the God question. 'You believe in God?' 'No.' Boom. Dead. 'You believe in God?' 'Yes.' 'You believe in my God? 'No.' Boom. Dead. 'My God has a bigger dick than your God!'

        --George Carlin...

        He was of course very much onto something with this!

      5. ItsNotMe
        Pint

        @Don Jefe

        My...my...my...haven't we gotten our knickers in a bunch.

        "Religion"...that wonderful institution where people pay homage to a made-up entity who "lives" somewhere up in the sky. No one has actually ever seen this "god" or "allah" or whatever, but not a problem...because their ancestors have been doing this for millennia...so there just has to be something to it. Right? OK...whatever............................

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @Arnaut the less

            "String Theory. The Multiverse. So far, made up entities that may or may not exist. Just saying."

            The glaring difference is that these are theoretical frameworks with active efforts to prove or disprove their validity, not beliefs. Physicists know that there may one day be results from the LHC or a similar project which will effectively disprove their theorem. This will cause them to discard theories they have been working on rather than say, massacre the researchers who documented the evidence as apostates. At least you'd hope so.

            "Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism have an awful lot of adherents and really have no equivalent to the Middle Eastern "god". Buddha is not a God or a son of God, just someone who was enlightened and saw through the illusion of the physical appearance of the universe. "

            While not a religion as such Confucianism is tied up with Chinese Pantheism (Tian), and Taoism is as well (albeit a different pantheon). As such their underpinning are religious in nature, and influence their reasoning. Equally while modern Buddhism does not worship the Buddha as such does not mean it was always so. The classical Buddhist scriptures clearly ascribe to him aspects of the divine.

            "It is interesting to try to understand why the Yahwist religions were attached to such a collection of bloody conquerors, but quite wrong to think that they are even typical of religions."

            Buddhism is not generally associated with violence, but there's a long history of it there too. The big difference appears to have been the export of violence, whereas Buddhism generally kept its violence at home, often in reaction to the popularity of older religions (Bon in Tibet) or against co-existence with newer ones appearing in the area (particularly Islam). Not so different in terms of the end result.

        2. Don Jefe

          Re: @ItsNotMe

          My 'knickers are in a bunch' because people like you are responsible for many of the deaths caused 'by religion' because they don't even read what they're responding to. Lot of short fused closet theologians obviously need to go back into the closet and brush up on both your secular and religious history.

          If you had botherd to read before prematurely pontificating you would have seen that I wasn't defending religion, by a long shot, but eviscerating the idiots that gather under a flag they don't understand and then foist the resultant destruction, and blame, onto anybody but themselves.

          My ancestors were killing Englishmen before the Englishmen decided to call themselves Englishmen. How many Englishmen have I killed? My Grandfather probably killed a few, by proxy, but he was engineering landmines, so it wasn't personal (I'm fairly sure he didn't like anybody). Nor do I wear a kilt when I get up every morning and switch on the machines and greet my staff, both capable of building the most advanced weapons known to man, but use those things to make zero weapons, won't do it, no matter the loss. So nope, seems I can't blame my ancestors for my actions either. Over 1100 years of violent warmongers produces me, but I have free will, just as every other Human does, so I get to determine what I do, why and when, nobody else.

          As I said in my earlier post, past the third sentence, so you obviously never got that far, all people have free will as well. Unfortunately, far too many are too cowardly to express it and just hop on the first bandwagon that doesn't cast them out. Just like you not to put too fine a point in it. Rushing in to claim your seat on the 'blame train' bound for nowhere. You made that decision (I'm going to blame your parents for not teaching you to read) and you're obviously fine with practicing the same delusional behavior as the 'religious' because you're blaming a god you claim not to believe in, ancestors you've never met, and the Jews, anybody, but the people your god supposedly endowed with free will.

          Make no fucking mistake about it. If you're blaming religion, instead of individuals, for the destruction caused 'by religion' then you're acknowledging their god has control over them and therefore acknowledging a god I'm sure you claim to deny, but because you didn't read the fine print on the back of the Atheism train ticket before you followed your herd you've got no fucking idea how to do that correctly either.

          So, just so we're clear, when I say you're a fucking idiot that's me saying that. Just me, when you respond, or downvote me or feel even more foolish than you normally do who are you going to blame for that? A god you don't believe in, but controls others? Your ancestors? Your parents? The Irish, Jews, French, the Pikeys? Me? Or are you going to blame yourself for being a fucking idiot? If it's anybody but yourself you're wrong, think on it and try again.

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