Little Known Facts About Jewish People Who Were Involved With Geography

 Nadene Goldfoot                                               

We know from early on in the Torah and Jewish people were involved migrating to Egypt and that Abraham and his father, Terah migrated from the city of Ur to Canaan. 

 Moses had to have learned some geography in Egypt to lead 600,000 released slaves to Canaan, though it did take him 40 years to move that many from Egypt, The miles based distance from Egypt to Canaan is only 314.466 miles.  Today a land trip could be driven in 7 hours and 1 minute. 

Another measurement showed the distance to be only 309.737 miles that could be driven in 6 hours and 55 minutes.  It must depend on the car, month of the year, climate and political conditions.  

The distance from Portland, Oregon eastward to Ontario, Oregon is 378.8 miles and can be driven in 5 hours 50 minutes via I-84.  The geography of the highways must be a little harder on the Egyptian-Jerusalem freeway.  

 

The Jewish geographical horizon early on included Egypt, Chaldea, and Babylon, while King Solomon had trading expeditions that extended knowledge southward.                                                         

The growth of the outer lands, the Diaspora, brought Jews into contact with Greece, Western Asia and the Roman Empire.

                                                       

Later, under Byzantium and Islam, Jews traded from the Rhone River through the Mediterranean or Central Europe to India and China, until interrupted by the Crusades of the 11th century and the rise of gentile trade.  Evidently up until this period, Jews were the most prolific traders in the world. 

                                                     

 Jews nevertheless pioneered the routes from North Africa to the Niger River in the 14th and 15th centuries.  The Niger River is the principal river of West Africa, extending about 4,180 km. Its drainage basin is 2,117,700 km² in area. Its source is in the Guinea Highlands in southeastern Guinea.

The Bible and Apocrypha (non-canonical Jewish literature, possibly composed after finishing the Bible or were written in Greek-normally applied only to books incorporated in the Septuagint which were canonized by the Catholic Church) reflect the belief that the world was a circle of land surrounded by sea.  

                                                        

The concept that Jerusalem was the center of the world was shared with Christianity, but the knowledge of the earth as a sphere came to Jews via Islam in the 10th century, while the Zohar (the chief work of the Spanish Kabbalah, a commentary on sections of the Torah and Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations) in the 13th century knew that the world revolves on its axis. 

                                                         

 The Jewish Cartographers of Majorca (islands belonging to Spain where Jews lived since Roman times) showed in their maps a remarkable knowledge of the geography and trade-routes of the Mediterranean and North Africa.

The first systematic geography in Hebrew was by Abraham bar Hiyya in about 1100. It was Christopher Columbus (1446-1506), born in Italy but spoke as a native Spaniard, could have been born into a Marrano (hidden Jewish ancestry) who sailed away in 1492 with a few sailors fleeing from the Spanish inquisition.  He was looking for a short-cut to India and his new map indicated such a direction.  Christopher himself wrote to his son in Hebrew.  Who sold him his maps?  Who did he go to for maps?  The geographical knowledge derived from new discoveries was communicated to Jews by Abraham Farissoi in the 16th century. Jewish travel books are known from the 10th century, the most important one being that of Benjamin of Tudelea of the 12th century, while his contemporary, Pethahiah of Regensburg, wrote on his own journey to Eastern Europe and the Orient.  After the 13th century, accounts of Palestine are common.  In the 18th century, Hayyim Joseph David Azulai described Jewish communities throughout the world and in the 20th century, Jacob Saper added information on Yemen, etc.

The 1st modern Hebrew geographical text-books were published in the 18th century based on German sources of Samson ha-Levi, Shevile Olam, in 1825, while Hillel Khana's Gelilot Aretz in 1880 laid the foundation for the textbooks and terminology used in Israel today.  

 

Resource:

The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia

https://www.freemaptools.com/how-far-is-it-between-cairo_-egypt-and-jerusalem_-israel.htm

Strong Evidence of Christopher Columbus Being Jewish; A Marrano; Now Accused of What?

Nadene Goldfoot
                                                   

Columbus b: 1446-d: 1506
He was born 574 years ago

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.
                                                      

Protesters pulling down Columbus statue

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.  
                                                         

The Expulsion of the Jews from Spain (in the year 1492) by Emilio Sala Francés

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. 
                                                                             

By 1480, Thomas de Torquemada was Inquisitor-General
Torture had been going on already for 12 years

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 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

Descendants of Jewish Lithuanians: Up To Gaon of Vilna's Days

Nadene Goldfoot                                         

The most famous rabbi from Lithuania was the Gaon of Vilna.  His name was Elijah ben Solomon Zalman and he was born in 1720 and died in 1797.  He was an expert in the Talmud and was famous very early on for his scholarship.  
                                                                             
What was the world like that he had been born into?  His parents were Rabbi Shlomo-Zalman d: 1758 and Treina.  His mother came from the town of Seltz (today's Selets) near Grodno.  His father came from a prominent Vilna family.  The known male line started with Rabbi David Ashkenazy d: 1645.  He was known as the Rosh Yeshiva in Lemberg, Poland.  This could have been the same man known as Rabbi David, son of Mordekhai Ashkenazy .  David's son was Rabbi Moshe Kremer who died in 1688, who held the position of the chief rabbi of Vilna.  Moshe Kremer's son was Rabbi Eliyahu who died in 1710, known as Hassid due to his piety.  I was just doing some genealogy on one of the Gaon's descendants, a Kramer.  This may be the connection directly to this famous rabbi.  .

 How were Lithuanian Jews different from other Jews in other countries?  My grandmother, Zlata Jermulowske, was born in  Lazdijai which was on the border between Poland and Lithuania, but she wanted her children to know that she was a Litvak; and proud of it. In 1855 Lazdey had 1,546 Jews.  That was 60% of the population for that town.   My poor bobba could not read or write in any language, but she produced 2 grandchildren who were American PhDs and 3 teachers of elementary schools, and one of those PhDs taught in college as well. She produced a master's degree.  Zlata was proud of her Litvak heritage and their reputation.  A ggrandson is a veterinarian.  A ggrandson is a classical pianist.

Our grandfather Nathan Goldfus couldn't read or write English, that I know when he came to the states in 1900.  His town of Telzh had 3,209 Jews in 1855, 61% Jewish.  By the time he immigrated in 1897 there were 3,088 Jews there which had dropped to 51% of the town's pop

ulation.  Jews were leaving.  .                                                         

Lithuanian Jews did have a reputation.  They were known for their intellectual and rational attitudes.  They were also called the Cross Headsa, suggesting that they would be ready to strike out vertically and horizontally  in order to achieve his goal, or to cross check his findings in order to reach THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH.  This was seen not only in their daily life but in other times in the social-cultural strata, such as not falling for any FALSE MESSIAHS.  It's known they were against the Chassidism, and can probably thank the Gaon of Vilna for that, since he fought against it pretty hard.
                                                                           

Shtetl of Shkudvil, Lithuania 

They studied the Torah with diligence in the synagogues as well in the Yeshivoth Ketanoth and in the Great Yeshivoth.  Jewish Lithuania was famous for its great Yeshivoth of Slabodka in Telsiai (Telzh) where my grandfather lived.  They also had Yeshivote in Poniezh and Kelem where hundreds of foreign students also studied.

The Salant community was also well known because it was from here that the MUSAR (ETHICS) movement began an spread by Rabbi Yisrael Salanter whose principals were based on the idea of intellectual activity and knowledge in order to correct and improve the behavior of the individual.

Lithuanian Jewry was also known for fostering the HIBATH ZION MOVEMENT, and later by practially adopting the Zionist idea, and at the same time an almost simultaneous openness to the challenge of the HASKALAH or (ENLIGHTENMENT MOVEMENT.)  It didn't matter if it was in Yiddish, Hebrew, Russian or German.
                                                                     

Jews had developed impressive attributes and achievements as well as a special character within the Jewish world, developed alongside the prolonged struggles for their economic and civil rights among the ethnic Lithuanian population where they were born in those days in spite of the frequent changes of rulers.                                               

By the time our Gaon of Vilna was 20 he spent his time traveling among the Jewish communities of Poland and Germany and finally settled down in Vilna, Lithuania where he taught and later founded his own academy.

As we know, Jews were driven out of Judah in 70 CE by the Romans who burned down the 2nd Temple there and even Jerusalem, taking who they could has slaves to Rome.  Those were the first Ashkenazi Jews as they would then make their way to Germany eventually.
                                                                     

13 Century Jews of Germany

The first settlement of Jews into the Great Lithuanian Princedom, THE MAGNUS DECATUS LITHUANIAE, began in the 1300s by invitation only from the Grand dukes Gediminas and Vytaufas (Witold).  They extended invitations usually because they heard of the Jews' prowess at math and keeping records, helping other governments with their skills.

By 1388, one year after the Christian-Catholic religion was introduced all over Lithuania, the Catholics also granted the Jews a preferred civil status and incomparable bills of rights such as protecting their bodies and property;  freedom to keep their religious rituals;  significant alleviation in the field of commerce;  and money lending which was permitted in relation to their Christians.  There was even a special regulation to protect Jews against blood libels.
                                                                     

The Italian Christopher Columbus could have been Jewish.  He wrote to
his son in Hebrew.  His ships had a Jew or two on as sailors, getting out of Spain.  He sailed at the time of the Spanish Inquisition.  Maybe he was
related to the well known Jewish Kalonymus family in Italy.  

1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue-Spain kicked out all Jews from Spain unless they converted to Christianity.

Christianity got around very fast and furiously.  By 1495, the Grand Duke Alexander expelled all Jews from Lithuania, too!  Jews by then numbered more than 6,000 people.  The  government also took all their property as well!  That must have been a good political move, because 8 years later he was elected King of Poland.  They had a joint rule clause between these 2 countries.  Then he allowed the Lithuanian Jews to return to their homes-if they weren't already occupied- and gave them back only part of their property.  He left most of the privileges alone as they had been so that they reserved the legal, civil and economic status of the Jews which must be why they decided to return.
                                                                     

Lithuanian town

The townspeople were not impressed or happy to see them return.  They  were mostly from Germany and were organized now in merchant  and artisan unions and who had been enjoying the MAGDEBURG RIGHTS  and now they saw the returning Jews as competitors who had to be fought.

They brought about an edict DE NON TOLERANDIS JUDAEIS, making it forbidden to Jews to settle in Vilna or to trade there.  These insults to Jews by the urban Christians, even students of theological seminars, continued for hundreds of years.  Anti-Semitism was created.
                                                                           

It was different in another part of Lithuania, though.  The NW region, ZEMAITIJA/SAMOGITIA had ethnic Lithuanian tribes living there who had become Catholics much later in 1413 and han't yet become infected with anti-Semitism with a religious background.  Zamut Jews were in the business of customs and tax collection.  Another wave of Jews came and settled there after Vilna and Memel Jews were kicked out in 1567.

Feudalism reigned in Lithuania.  Most people made a living as farmers, breeding cattle and poultry, fishing in rivers and lakes and harvesting trees.  It was the Jews who were peddlers, and a few of them dealt in importing and exporting agricultural products.  Finally due to improved roads, taverns and storehouses were built near crossroads and river ports turned into villages and towns where many Jewish artists and merchants settled.

Until the 18th century, townships were granted to only 83 settlements.   and rights for commercial activity to 87 settlements.  Really, there was no big difference between a small and a big town.
                                                                         

Granddaughters of a Jewish family in Eisiskes, Lithuania at time of Holocaust

Most of the people were Christians.  Most believed in devils and ghosts and now THE JEW replaced these evil symbols.  It was very easy for the average Lithuanian to believe in the BLOOD LIBELS.  It's a phenomenon that continue to exist until only recently in Europe, and I see some in the Middle East like Syria are believers as well.  The Blood Libel is when someone accuses a Jew of using human blood in making food such as matzos, the flour and water cracker eaten during Passover.  It's disgusting!  Jews don't even eat blood accidentally when eating any meat!  It's a no no to Jews, part of our Kosher laws.  No Blood.
                                                                             

At the end of the 18th century there were several places where half of the population was Jewish and in a few even a decisive majority.  In urban areas, Jews lived in the JEWISH QUARTER, sometimes called THE JEWS' STREET, just like in Syria.  Jews outside this confined area remained strongly linked, connected to Jews in this confined area.  Western Russia had created THE PALE OF SETTLEMENT in many countries brought about through Catherine the Great.  She influenced these other countries where they held where many restrictive edicts and harsh limitations that  were imposed on the Jewish population.  These caused great hardships and continued until World War I 1914-1917.
                                                                           

Warsaw, Poland Uprising 

The Holocaust started earlier than the USA became involved.  The late 1930s were horrible times for Jews of Europe with Hitler's rising.  On the eave of this Shoah, there were about a quarter of a million Jews including the Vilna region and the refugees from Poland. They were only about 0.9% of the world's Jews during the 20 years of Lithuania's Independence.  As we already know, 6 million Jews were slaughtered in the Holocaust.
                                                                         

1941 Jews being led away by Kovno, Lithuanian  militianman to the fort.   

References: https://jewishbubba.blogspot.com/2018/05/the-academic-wonder-gaon-of-vilna.html
 Preserving Our Litvak Heritage-a history of 31 Jewish communities in Lithuania by Josef Rosin, Joel Alpert, editor
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Eliyahu's Branches-the Descendants of the Vilna Gaon and His Family by Chaim Freedman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Lithuania

Christopher Columbus-A Hidden Jew

Nadene Goldfoot                                       

Do you know that Christopher Columbus (1451 Genoa, Italy-May 20, 1506 Valladolid, Spain) was a Jewish convert to Catholicism (third generation, I think)?   And his wife, Filipa Moniz Perestrelo,  was also basically Jewish, from Portugal,  and so was his son.  They married in 1479.  "Chris was based in Lisbon for several years, but later took a Spanish mistress; he had one son with each woman, Diego and Ferdinand.  

The man, a Jew, most likely was forced to convert being the Spanish feeling towards Jews had been growing and developing way before they decided to carry on a full inquisition.  He also might have been a Marrano, a hidden Jew, one who practiced what Judaism he could in secret.  Families kept such a secret up into this very day, afraid to expose themselves.  Today, people found to have had this horrible experience in their family are called the Anusim, not Marranos. Another name used for hidden Jews of Spain or Portugal was a Converso.  A quarter of a million Spanish Jews were converted forcibly. 

"

A service in a Spanish synagogue, from the Sister Haggadah (c. 1350). The Alhambra Decree would bring Spanish Jewish life to an end.

"The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate their influence on Spain's large converso population and ensure they did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391." (wikipedia)  " As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in prior years, over 200,000 Jews converted to Catholicism and between 40,000 and 100,000 were expelled, an indeterminate number returning to Spain in the years following the expulsion."  
                                                         

When it did happen, Jews tried to leave in ships for Portugal.  Sometimes they didn't make it.  It was a dangerous venture.  Marranos were "(in medieval Spain) a Christianized Jew or Moor, especially one who merely professed conversion in order to avoid persecution.

                                                    

For those Marranos who never left Spain and had become full-fledged Christians, it didn't take long to assimilate and be one of the Spaniards.  Within 50-60 years, even though Jewish customs were preserved in Marrano homes, sometimes even for centuries, such as lighting candles on Friday night or eating unleavened bread in the Spring, it was treated by later generations as nothing more than a mysterious family tradition  As far as religion was concerned, they were now Catholics.  

As for the Jews who made it to Portugal to live, they in turn were expelled from there 5 years later.  That decree damaged them more than the original Spanish expulsion because it showed them that the inquisitional Church's Christian society was far more serious than anything previously.  

Jews were forced to leave for the next 50 years after 1492's decree from the Iberin Peninsula.  They had a hard time mingling with their fellow Jews.  The rabbis of that day even decreed that Marranos were to be accepted and taken back into the Jewish community, but the Jews they found outside of Spain had little sympathy for the Marranos.  They had no idea of the horrors that the Spanish Inquisitioners  used to threaten people.  For many generations, people wouldn't marry a Marrano.  They were not accepted as Jews, possibly out of resentment that at the moment of truth, they had weakened and opted to convert and save their lives instead of facing exile.  So the Marranos banded together forming their own communities and didn't mix with the Jews.

                                                      

In the eastern European Jewish communities of Poland of the 1400s and early 1500s, the center of Ashkenazic Jewry was established.  The Sephardic Jewry made homes throughout Europe and the Mediterranean basin.  Italy was a popular destination, even though it was mainly the largest Catholic country in the world.  In that time period, Italy ws divided into many small kingdoms.  The Church in Italy was liberal compared to Spain.  It was the time of the Medici and Borgias popes who were not really religious men.  

"Marranos found Italy to be pleasant, so different from Spain.  Jews even accepted them .  The most famous Jew to flee here was Don Isaac Abarbanel.  His presence in Italy gave standing to the Spanish Jews, and even to the Marranos, who rose rapidly in social circles to positions of wealth and influence. 

When Abarbanel arrived, a great rabbi from Poland settled in the town of Padua, Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen, who is on our family tree."  He had 3 sons;  a rabbi, a banker and a merchant.  They befriended Italian noblemen scattered long the broken sites of the Italian peninsula and created a base for Jewish life for the future.

Katzenellenbogen and his sons had many descendants.  Don Isaac has many many descendants.  These 2 great rabbis, created the Italian-Jewish community and were the cement that held it together.  

He was such a brave man, and must have been quite interested in science to have taken such risks as sail in the unknown uncharted sea testing out a theory.  Had he not ventured with his fleet of ships of the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria, we might still think the world was flat and not take any chances to explore.  What he did was open up the world that he had found to be very ugly.

 I didn't know that, but I do know that Columbus corresponded with his son in Hebrew, so he didn't want anyone to know what they were talking about.  At the time Yale and Harvard were built in the USA, they were teaching Hebrew, so I wasn't sure if Hebrew was more familiar to educated people in his day or not.  

His trip to the New World was financed by one Jew (Abarbanel) and two Jewish converts to Christianity. These three gave their money to the Spanish queen.  

The Abravanel (Abarbanel) family was distinguished of Spanish origin.  The surname is a diminutive of Abraham through Abravan. 

 Isaac Abravanel was born in 1437 and died in 1508.  He was a statesman, philosopher, and bible exegete.  Abravanel served as treasurer to Alfonso V of Portugal, but fled to Spain in 1483, which is the opposite direction most would dream of taking.  Anti-Semitism was happening. He had gone to Spain to escape charges of conspiracy leveled by Alfonso's son and successor against his father's ministers.  

The Spanish Inquisition was in its height in 1492 when Catholicism was dictating that Jews had to convert to their religion or get out of the country quickly.   

In Toledo, he entered the service of Ferdinand and Isabella but was unable to avert the decree of expulsion from Spain in 1492.  So he accompanied many of his fellow-exiles, called Marranos, an ugly word meaning "hidden Jews"  to Italy where he was employed by the court of Naples.  After further tribulations which brought him to Sicily, Corfu and Monopoli, he finally settled in Venice in 1503 where he tried to negotiate a treaty with Portugal.  

His main importance derives from his voluminous literary works which include a commentary on the Bible which had considerable influence on the 17th and 18th century Christian exegesis;  philosophical works of an essentially anti-nationalist nature, and religious writings that stressed the primacy for Judaism of the belief in Divine Revelation and the Messiah.

His later works influenced the messianic movements of the 16th and 17th centuries.  

Judah Abravanel was known as Leone Ebreo and was born in 1460 and died in 1521.   He was a philosophr and a physician, the  son of Isaac Abfavanel whom he accompanied to Italy.  He wrote the Dialoghi d'Amore (Dialogues of Love) in 1502, then published in 1535 which strives to combine Neoplatonism and Judaism.  It stresses the concept of Love as the foundation of the universe and the key to union with G-d.  The book must have been very popular as it was translated into a number of languages, including Hebrew, and exercised a great influence on the lyric poetry of the 16th century in  Italy, France and Germany.

Samuel Abravanel was also a son of Isaac Abravanel.  He was born in 1473 and died in 1547 and was the family financier.  He was the head of the Jewish community of Naples for many years and settled in Ferrara after the expulsion of the Jews from that kingdom in 1541.  He and his wife, Bienvenida, who died in 1560, were literary patrons.  

News on TV today announced that there would be no more Columbus Day in Columbus, Ohio.  Is this what is happening to our history?  People cannot accept the fact that the mindset of people years ago was different and that we can do 2 things; look back and see the progress or the decline in our own society today.   Such things as having a Columbus Day brings our minds to the history of that section of the world and we get to review what went on in those days and why.  The last thing we should be doing is whining about honoring Columbus, a man of vision.  They only see an empty cup and that Columbus had brought Spain and Portugal the Western Colonialism, whatever that implies.  

Update: 10/16/18

Resource: Andi Ziegelman, DNA researcher; Halpern & Branches

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus

https://www.jewishhistory.org/the-marranos/https://www.jewishhistory.org/the-marranos/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree