Nadene Goldfoot
Recently a statue of Christopher Columbus was destroyed over cat-calls of being a racist, the memory of a man that was already a part of American history from 500 years ago. What these avid statue -breakers don't know is that the man most likely was a Jew, a group of people who shared the same religion the Bible speaks of, who were suffering from anti-Semitism in that distant historic time which was far worse than that occurring today, so bad that Jews were suffering from its deadly consequences. He was the discoverer of America. Where would we be if he had not done this? Remember: His explorations were opening the way for European exploration and colonization of the Americas.
Christopher Columbus lived in the days of the Spanish Inquisition. He was born in 1446 and died in 1506. The Inquisition officially was pronounced in 1492 which millions of American children learned to remember by saying, In 14 hundred and 92, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. This happened. Columbus did get out of Spain in 1492, horrors of the Inquisition starting then.
There were many things about Columbus that have made Jewish historians wonder about his ancestry, and they have held to the hypothesis that he was a Marrano, a hidden Jew of that place and time. He was known to write letters to his son in Hebrew, for one, a language Italians and Spaniards did not know; only Jews did then. He was known to have sailors on his ship who were Jews. Starting with this evidence, more has come up. For one thing, his wife could have been a hidden Jew as well. "He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo," and Portugal was the neighbor of Spain where hidden Jews fled to when given the edict to leave Spain.
First of all, the Spanish Inquisition was set off by an environment of much anti-Semitism. The Catholic 4th Lateran Council of 1215 stirred up the pot, causing some scattered physical outbreaks. It strengthened the anti-usury laws, excluded Jews from all positions which could give them authority over Christians, and introduced the Jewish badge.
This marked the climax of medieval anti-Jewish church legislation and affected adversely the status of Jews. In 1391 a wave of massacres of Jews beginning at Seville, Spain swept through the entire peninsula. with the result of a very large numbers of Jews being forced into baptism into Christianity in order to escape death. This was repeated in the following year. They were called the "New Christians" or MARRANOS, outwardly appearing as Christians bu Jewish at heart and still attracting jealousy through their remarkable social and economic progress, and this caused the problem. It was also a hard situation on them as they had to hide their practices, thoughts and feelings.
There were more outbreaks against them, and then the INQUISTION was introduced in 1478. This type of arrest of Jews and torturing them violently in their chamber of horrors of tortures until they admitted their Jewishness which would result in their death only encouraged the inquisitors even more so. They've even been chasing down Marranos to Mexico only recently.
By 1492, the law said that Jews must be expelled from the country by the edict from Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain. The number of exiles is reckoned at 150,000 who found refuge mainly in Northern Africa and the Turkish Empire where their descendants, the Sephardim Jews, have continued to preserve the Spanish traditions and language. In Spain, there remained only the hidden Jews-pretend Christians, known as the Marranos of which the Inquisition continued its activities until the close of the 18th century.
Getting back to Columbus, he may already have been a Marrano whose family may have recently fled to Italy where he was born. This is because his mother-tongue was Spanish, showing that his parents also spoke Spanish. Spanish and Italian are sister languages, and are easy to learn for each other.
He was known to have boasted cryptically of his remote origins and clearly tried to conceal something of his immediate background. He had a mysterious signature of which he attached much importance to, and this is also capable of a Jewish interpretation. In one place he uses an inaccurate Jewish chronological tradition, and he seems to have avoided sailing on the ill-fated day of the 9th of Av. This is the day Jews remember as being the date of the destruction of the 1st and the 2nd Temples in Jerusalem. The first was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE but rebuilt from 538 to 515 BCE. The 2nd was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans. It is a sad day, a bad day, a fast day. These were horrible tragedies. It also includes the fall of Betar in 135 CE,( a city of the tribe of Judah and was the last stronghold of General Bar Kokhba who had taken back Jerusalem in 132 CE and held it for 3 years against the Romans); and the expulsion of all Jews from Spain in 1492, and other national calamities. It's not a day that Columbus would want to set sail. Perhaps this is why Kabbalah became so popular with Jews. It is amazingly weird that so many terrible events would fall on the same date as the 9th of Av, isn't it? This year the 9th of Av falls on the 30th of July. It's our bad luck day. Stay home and wear your mask if you step outside.
It was formerly believed that 5 members of his crew were of Jewish origin, but recent research has shown that this is true of only one, the interpreter, Luis de Torres. I would say that they had had plenty of practice hiding their religious affiliations, and it's possible that the 5 were Jews or Marranos b 1492.
He had set sail on August 3, 1492 from Spain's Port of Palos with 3 ships making up his fleet; the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. There was another ship who also set sail by itself from the same port that day full of Marranos getting out of Spain. The Spanish Alhambra decree that went out on March 31, 1492 said that the Jews had to leave by July 31, 1492. It was already past that date so was a dangerous time.
He had found encouragement and financial help from Jews and Marranos and his first reports of success were addressed to his Marrano patrons. Marrano translated is "swine." Jews did not eat swine-pork-meat from the pig. So of course, this name was picked to call these hidden Jews. People can be so mean in so many ways.
So our brilliant young people of Baltimore, Maryland just had to tear down Columbus's statue. A lot of Jews live in Maryland, by the way. I hope they weren't involved in this gang-mind-set approach to history. "A statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore's Little Italy was torn down amid protests Saturday night and then thrown into the Inner Harbor. Videos posted to social media showed the statue was pulled down using rope, and then dragged down a flight of stairs before being tossed into the harbor, CBS Baltimore reported. Did they have a reason to do so other than it was a historic statue and he was a white man?
The debate over Columbus's legacy has been continuing up till the destruction of his statue when a mob decided against him. He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in recent decades as scholars give greater attention to the harm committed under his governance, particularly the near extermination of the Indigenous Taino population from mistreatment and European diseases. There is good evidence that Columbus's regime brutally subjugated and enslaved the Taino to aid the Spanish quest for gold. Some other allegations, such as tyrannical rule over the Spanish colonists, are murkier: a contemporaneous, persistent smear campaign called the "black legend" makes the extent of Columbus's blame uncertain. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
Columbus had a hard time finding backing for his new and creative voyage. After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned him down on the advice of her confessor. Columbus was leaving town by mule in despair when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".
During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout, now thought by doctors to have been arthritis. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later. He had made 4 voyages.
It appears that being a 2nd generation-hidden Jew caused him to forget the teachings of Judaism, as Columbus had always claimed the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, but he grew increasingly religious in his later years, no doubt a demand or expectation of the backing royalty. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology.
There are many many books about Columbus but this one caught my eye. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, by Carol Delaney (Free Press, $26). It’s common knowledge that Columbus set sail to enrich the Spanish royal purse with Asian gold and spices. What is little known, Stanford University professor emerita Carol Delaney argues, is what that money was intended for: financing another crusade against the Muslim occupiers of the Holy Land. Intent on securing Jerusalem before the Second Coming of Christ, Columbus pushed on despite mutinous crews, deplorable sea conditions and unhappy sovereigns. Delaney frames a dramatic story with repercussions that could reach the heavens." This would certainly show if true, how Columbus had converted completely to Christianity.
Such a trip must have included a priest ready to convert those they found. Columbus would not have been raised in a cruel household but one, I believe, that would have followed the Golden Rule of not to cause harm to people you would not want done to you. At least with all the good he has done, he deserves to be remembered.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbus-statue-in-baltimore-torn-down-and-thrown-in-harbor/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/christopher-columbus-the-hidden-jew/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
 |
| Columbus b: 1446-d: 1506 He was born 574 years ago |
 |
| Protesters pulling down Columbus statue |
There were many things about Columbus that have made Jewish historians wonder about his ancestry, and they have held to the hypothesis that he was a Marrano, a hidden Jew of that place and time. He was known to write letters to his son in Hebrew, for one, a language Italians and Spaniards did not know; only Jews did then. He was known to have sailors on his ship who were Jews. Starting with this evidence, more has come up. For one thing, his wife could have been a hidden Jew as well. "He married Portuguese noblewoman Filipa Moniz Perestrelo," and Portugal was the neighbor of Spain where hidden Jews fled to when given the edict to leave Spain.
 |
| The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (in the year 1492) by Emilio Sala Francés |
This marked the climax of medieval anti-Jewish church legislation and affected adversely the status of Jews. In 1391 a wave of massacres of Jews beginning at Seville, Spain swept through the entire peninsula. with the result of a very large numbers of Jews being forced into baptism into Christianity in order to escape death. This was repeated in the following year. They were called the "New Christians" or MARRANOS, outwardly appearing as Christians bu Jewish at heart and still attracting jealousy through their remarkable social and economic progress, and this caused the problem. It was also a hard situation on them as they had to hide their practices, thoughts and feelings.
 |
| By 1480, Thomas de Torquemada was Inquisitor-General Torture had been going on already for 12 years |
By 1492, the law said that Jews must be expelled from the country by the edict from Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain. The number of exiles is reckoned at 150,000 who found refuge mainly in Northern Africa and the Turkish Empire where their descendants, the Sephardim Jews, have continued to preserve the Spanish traditions and language. In Spain, there remained only the hidden Jews-pretend Christians, known as the Marranos of which the Inquisition continued its activities until the close of the 18th century.
He was known to have boasted cryptically of his remote origins and clearly tried to conceal something of his immediate background. He had a mysterious signature of which he attached much importance to, and this is also capable of a Jewish interpretation. In one place he uses an inaccurate Jewish chronological tradition, and he seems to have avoided sailing on the ill-fated day of the 9th of Av. This is the day Jews remember as being the date of the destruction of the 1st and the 2nd Temples in Jerusalem. The first was destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE but rebuilt from 538 to 515 BCE. The 2nd was destroyed in 70 CE by the Romans. It is a sad day, a bad day, a fast day. These were horrible tragedies. It also includes the fall of Betar in 135 CE,( a city of the tribe of Judah and was the last stronghold of General Bar Kokhba who had taken back Jerusalem in 132 CE and held it for 3 years against the Romans); and the expulsion of all Jews from Spain in 1492, and other national calamities. It's not a day that Columbus would want to set sail. Perhaps this is why Kabbalah became so popular with Jews. It is amazingly weird that so many terrible events would fall on the same date as the 9th of Av, isn't it? This year the 9th of Av falls on the 30th of July. It's our bad luck day. Stay home and wear your mask if you step outside.
It was formerly believed that 5 members of his crew were of Jewish origin, but recent research has shown that this is true of only one, the interpreter, Luis de Torres. I would say that they had had plenty of practice hiding their religious affiliations, and it's possible that the 5 were Jews or Marranos b 1492.
He had set sail on August 3, 1492 from Spain's Port of Palos with 3 ships making up his fleet; the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria. There was another ship who also set sail by itself from the same port that day full of Marranos getting out of Spain. The Spanish Alhambra decree that went out on March 31, 1492 said that the Jews had to leave by July 31, 1492. It was already past that date so was a dangerous time.
He had found encouragement and financial help from Jews and Marranos and his first reports of success were addressed to his Marrano patrons. Marrano translated is "swine." Jews did not eat swine-pork-meat from the pig. So of course, this name was picked to call these hidden Jews. People can be so mean in so many ways.
So our brilliant young people of Baltimore, Maryland just had to tear down Columbus's statue. A lot of Jews live in Maryland, by the way. I hope they weren't involved in this gang-mind-set approach to history. "A statue of Christopher Columbus in Baltimore's Little Italy was torn down amid protests Saturday night and then thrown into the Inner Harbor. Videos posted to social media showed the statue was pulled down using rope, and then dragged down a flight of stairs before being tossed into the harbor, CBS Baltimore reported. Did they have a reason to do so other than it was a historic statue and he was a white man?
The crowd can be heard cheering as the statue is thrown in the harbor. The statue was thrown in the harbor as fireworks went off across the city to celebrate the Fourth of July. The statue was dedicated to the City of Baltimore by the Italian American Organization in October 1984, according to CBS Baltimore."
Columbus sailed off into unknown waters without falling off the planet as they had feared would happen when they moved away out of sight of shore. When he discovered America, it wasn't the Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts like the later Pilgrims did. For this he was a brave and daring man who had studied maps and the sea.
Columbus left Castile, Spain in August 1492 with three ships, and after a stopover in the Canary Islands made landfall in the Americas on 12 October (later celebrated as Columbus Day).
His landing place was an island in the Bahamas, known by its native inhabitants as Guanahani; its exact location is uncertain. Columbus subsequently visited the islands now known as Cuba and Hispaniola, establishing a colony in what is now Haiti: the first European settlement in the Americas since the Norse colonies nearly 500 years earlier. He arrived back in Castile in early 1493, bringing a number of captive natives with him. Word of his voyages soon spread throughout Europe.
The debate over Columbus's legacy has been continuing up till the destruction of his statue when a mob decided against him. He was widely venerated in the centuries after his death, but public perception has fractured in recent decades as scholars give greater attention to the harm committed under his governance, particularly the near extermination of the Indigenous Taino population from mistreatment and European diseases. There is good evidence that Columbus's regime brutally subjugated and enslaved the Taino to aid the Spanish quest for gold. Some other allegations, such as tyrannical rule over the Spanish colonists, are murkier: a contemporaneous, persistent smear campaign called the "black legend" makes the extent of Columbus's blame uncertain. Many landmarks and institutions in the Western Hemisphere bear his name, including the country of Colombia and the name Columbia, which is used as a personification for the United States, and appears in many place names there.
Columbus had a hard time finding backing for his new and creative voyage. After continually lobbying at the Spanish court and two years of negotiations, he finally had success in January 1492. Ferdinand and Isabella had just conquered Granada, the last Muslim stronghold on the Iberian Peninsula, and they received Columbus in Córdoba, in the Alcázar castle. Isabella turned him down on the advice of her confessor. Columbus was leaving town by mule in despair when Ferdinand intervened. Isabella then sent a royal guard to fetch him, and Ferdinand later claimed credit for being "the principal cause why those islands were discovered".
In the April 1492 "Capitulations of Santa Fe", King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella promised Columbus that if he succeeded he would be given the rank of Admiral of the Ocean Sea and appointed Viceroy and Governor of all the new lands he could claim for Spain. He had the right to nominate three persons, from whom the sovereigns would choose one, for any office in the new lands. He would be entitled to 10 percent of all the revenues from the new lands in perpetuity. Additionally, he would also have the option of buying one-eighth interest in any commercial venture with the new lands and receive one-eighth of the profits.
During a violent storm on his first return voyage, Columbus, then 41, suffered an attack of what was believed at the time to be gout, now thought by doctors to have been arthritis. In subsequent years, he was plagued with what was thought to be influenza and other fevers, bleeding from the eyes, temporary blindness and prolonged attacks of gout. The attacks increased in duration and severity, sometimes leaving Columbus bedridden for months at a time, and culminated in his death 14 years later. He had made 4 voyages.
It appears that being a 2nd generation-hidden Jew caused him to forget the teachings of Judaism, as Columbus had always claimed the conversion of non-believers as one reason for his explorations, but he grew increasingly religious in his later years, no doubt a demand or expectation of the backing royalty. Probably with the assistance of his son Diego and his friend the Carthusian monk Gaspar Gorricio, Columbus produced two books during his later years: a Book of Privileges (1502), detailing and documenting the rewards from the Spanish Crown to which he believed he and his heirs were entitled, and a Book of Prophecies (1505), in which he considered his achievements as an explorer but a fulfillment of Bible prophecy in the context of Christian eschatology.
There are many many books about Columbus but this one caught my eye. Columbus and the Quest for Jerusalem, by Carol Delaney (Free Press, $26). It’s common knowledge that Columbus set sail to enrich the Spanish royal purse with Asian gold and spices. What is little known, Stanford University professor emerita Carol Delaney argues, is what that money was intended for: financing another crusade against the Muslim occupiers of the Holy Land. Intent on securing Jerusalem before the Second Coming of Christ, Columbus pushed on despite mutinous crews, deplorable sea conditions and unhappy sovereigns. Delaney frames a dramatic story with repercussions that could reach the heavens." This would certainly show if true, how Columbus had converted completely to Christianity.
Such a trip must have included a priest ready to convert those they found. Columbus would not have been raised in a cruel household but one, I believe, that would have followed the Golden Rule of not to cause harm to people you would not want done to you. At least with all the good he has done, he deserves to be remembered.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/columbus-statue-in-baltimore-torn-down-and-thrown-in-harbor/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/christopher-columbus-the-hidden-jew/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus
No comments:
Post a Comment