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Some of the "evidence" is quite a stretch: Interpreter or banker would be common occupations for a Jewish convert in 15th century Spain. That doesn't mean Columbus had to be Jewish himself. Also, the liberation of Jerusalem was a big theme in the Europe of that era, hardly a Jewish oddity.
I also find it impossible to believe that a man born and bred in Genoa didn't speak Italian (or Genoese, to be more precise). Unless he wasn't actually from Genoa of course.
By the way, there is no such thing as "Castilian Spanish". Both terms are synonymous.
He was nominally Genoese, but was of Spanish extraction and was not literate in Italian Colon was a common name among Jews living in Itaily. He liked Jewish culture and marrano society. His interpreter, Luis de Torrees, was Jewish.
File under poetic justice if so.
It's possible Columbus could have been an Italian Jew or Bene Italkim which is the traditional Italian Jewish rite!
But lots of evidence indicates that he is of Sephardi Jewish descent!
LUIS DE TORRES (died 1493), perhaps born as יוסף בן הלוי העברי, Yosef ben HaLevi HaIvri, ("Joseph, Son of Levi, the Hebrew") was Christopher Columbus's interpreter on his first voyage and the first person of Jewish origin to settle in America.
While still a Jew, de Torres served as an interpreter to the governor of Murcia due to his knowledge of Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, and Portuguese. In order to avoid the expulsion edict against the Jews of Spain, de Torres converted to Catholicism shortly before the departure of Columbus's expedition. Columbus hoped that the interpreter's skills would be useful in Asia because they would enable him to communicate with local Jewish traders, and he may also have believed that he would find descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
Did you read the article? There seems to be quite a few indicators that Columbus might have very well been from a converso family who could have named a son Christopher to "prove" their Christianity.
How many Jewish parents name their child Christopher?
His name was Cristobal Colón in Spanish. Many Sephardi Jews took on various names but still left indicators that they were of Jewish origins in some of the names they took!
If his family was Jewish, they may have fled Spain at some point because of the Inquisition and settled Genoa, which is not all that far away. Spain was not a very safe place for the conversos and marranos. Many emigrated to the New World where they were further from the eyes of the Inquisitors -- and many retained some of the Jewish customs even several generations after they converted to Catholicism.
Old post, but since it came up, would be ironic since Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain.
Ironically, part of the wealth of the Jewish community came because in places like Spain, money lending was seen as filthy, and sinful. So the Spanish wouldn't do banking and would let the so called 'filthy Jews' do it (as they were called). Guess who profited from that. But they were still segregated, dealt with all the bad stereotypes and then if anything went wrong got blamed for it.
If his family was Jewish, they may have fled Spain at some point because of the Inquisition and settled Genoa, which is not all that far away. Spain was not a very safe place for the conversos and marranos. Many emigrated to the New World where they were further from the eyes of the Inquisitors -- and many retained some of the Jewish customs even several generations after they converted to Catholicism.
The Inquisition was imposed in Spanish and Portuguese colonies. Britain, Netherlands took in Jews fleeing Iberian peninsula because of the Inquisition. Coincidentally Jews still thrived wherever they were especially as merchants, bootleggers, bankers, slave masters and slave owners and traders.
Jews still conducted business and trade across all colonies and various nations and still kept communication and ties with Spain and Portugal even after Inquisition was imposed!
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