Columbus Is Still Making News 500 Years Later!

On this Columbus Day we now know that the 15th-century explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew, according to Spanish scientists using DNA analysis.

A research team analyzed DNA samples from remains buried in Seville Cathedral. By comparing samples with those of known relatives and descendants, the conclusion was Columbus’s genetic heritage was Jewish.

Columbus Day commemorates the explorer's arrival in the Americas in October of 1492.

Even though the event, which falls annually on the second Monday in October, is one of the nation's 11 federally recognized holidays, it's not observed by some businesses, states and institutions amid the push to shift recognition away from Columbus and instead to celebrate indigenous peoples.

The discovery of America was the result of many people's work, including Jewish scholars and Spanish-Jewish converts to Christianity.

Abraham Zacuto developed astronomical tables, maps and almanacs.

Levi ben Gerson invented the sea-quadrant, or Jacob's staff, which guided ships.

Luis Torres, an interpreter on Columbus's first crew, was among the Jews who converted to the cover of Christianity in Spain or Portugal, particularly during the 14th and 15th centuries. 

Furthermore, Jewish authors wrote about the history and character of the new lands after it became clear they were west of Asia.

Three of these Jewish men were in the Spanish court and helped to influence royal approval to Columbus's expedition. They could have been Anusim, a Hebrew term used to describe people who were compelled to convert to another faith due to physical threats, psychological stress, or economic sanctions.  [Some Anusim descendants tried to maintain their Jewish faith in secret, while others migrated to other countries and reverted to Judaism.]

Speculation is that Columbus concealed his Jewish identity, or converted to Catholicism, to escape religious persecution.

Nevertheless, once again a Jewish man by the name of Christopher ("Christ bearer") changed the course of world history.

Columbus grew increasingly religious in his later years. He produced two books: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of Christian eschatology. He wrote that Christianity must be spread throughout the world before the Second Coming of Jesus.

From the 1990s onward, a narrative of Columbus being responsible for the genocide of indigenous peoples began to compete with the heretofore predominant discourse of Columbus as Christ-bearer, scientist, or father of America. As a result of protests and riots following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, many public monuments of Columbus were defaced and removed.

However, the antisemitic spirit running rampant in this world certainly hates or even anticipated the fascinating scientific breakthrough announced in Spain over the weekend.