This Learn Spanish Quiz post is perhaps an easy one, yet shameful for Puerto Rico. This mistake received international press coverage so you may have already seen it. I just had the opportunity a few days back to head over and take this photo to use here.
Before we go into the Spanish Quiz portion of the post, I’d like to explain a bit about the place I took this photo. As I mentioned this mistake received international press when the memorial was inaugurated earlier this year. I never understood why a new Jewish Memorial was installed in front of Puerto Rico’s Capitol building. There really aren’t many Jews in Puerto Rico and those that are here are not visible. It seemed out of place.
And then I visited the memorial to take this picture.
First, it’s a beautiful monument. There’s a sculpture surrounded by plaques forming a half-circle narrating the history of Jews in Germany before and during WWII.
As you face the monument with Puerto Rico’s Capitol behind you there’s a small alcove to the left. It appears as almost an afterthought, only a small portion of the total monument. But, not only is it an integral part of the whole structure, it holds the answer to why a Jewish monument received such prominence here.
I’m a huge reader of history. Even as a kid I read hundreds of books on history. And yet I had never heard of the Lod Massacre until I visited the memorial almost 2 weeks ago.
In brief, on 30 May 1972 three Japanese nationals opened fire in Tel Aviv’s Lod Airport (now the Ben Gurion Airport) murdering 26 people and wounding another 80. Of the 26 people who died in the terrorist attack, 17 were Puerto Ricans on a Christian pilgrimage to Israel.
Thus the Jewish memorial in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Learn Spanish Quiz: Jerusalem in Spanish
Now, on to the Spanish Quiz portion of this post. There’s one error on the engraved plaque. This error was discovered shortly after the inauguration of the memorial. Yet several months later it still exists. It’s shameful so I had hoped that the Puerto Rican government would have corrected the error by now. Unfortunately I was not surprised to find nothing had been corrected.
So find the only error on the plaque.
Ready? Here’s the answer…
The city Jerusalem is spelled incorrectly in Spanish. In fact there are two errors in its spelling (and one accent error). As you see on the plaque the Spanish version is written Jerualem.
The correct spelling of the city Jerusalem, in Spanish would be Jerusalén.
Hopefully Puerto Rican officials will do the right thing and correct the error.
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