Happy Thanksgiving!

For this Thanksgiving special, I will be focusing on Sonia’s short essay Columbus and Thanksgiving Day. The essay is only two pages long and in it, she discusses the legendry of Columbus and his ethnicity. Although Columbus was thought to be a Spaniard, due to his fluency in Spanish, it is rumored that he was secretly a Jew. (Times of Israel) For instance, his departure date, August 3, 1492, to the New World coincides with the date in which Jews were met with expulsion from Spain. On March 31, 1492, the order to expel Jews was issued, but the Jews had until the end of July to leave the country. (History)

Celso García de la Riega, a Spanish historian and author, made it his mission to prove Columbus was a Spanish Jew. In short, a Sephardic Jew. (Britannica) De la Riega held a public conference on the night of December 20, 1898, to share his research on the matter. The title of his presentation was Cristobal Colón Español? (Online Books) The documents that de la Riega presented, which he claimed to have found in Pontevedra in Galicia, contained the names of the Colón family and the Fonterossa family. By some means, de la Riega linked Columbus with the Colón family while his wife was linked with the Fonterossa family, whose ancestors were known to be Jewish.

Taking de la Riega’s research further, Maurice David wrote Who was “Columbus”? which provided additional “proof” consisting of photostatic reproductions of 40 letters written by Columbus. The book was published in 1933 by Research Publishing Company. According to Maurice David, the cryptic, triangular form of Columbus’s signature was deciphered into “an abbreviation of the ‘last confession’ of the Jews and also a substitute for the Kaddish.” Moreover, the obscure monogram at the top left corner of most of Columbus’s intimate letters was suggested by Maurice David that it was “nothing more nor less than an old Hebrew greeting”. 

However, the article Columbus & the Jews by Jonathan D. Sarna takes all of these sources and presents a wholly different and adequate reality from trustworthy Jewish scholars, particularly from the scholarly research of Rabbi Meyer Kayserling. (Brandeis) At the request of the Spanish government on the 400th anniversary of America’s discovery, Kayserling wrote Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese. (Jewish Virtual Library) It can be claimed with certainty, thanks to Kayserling’s research, that Jews played a role in the pilgrimages of Columbus. Luis Santángel, a third generation converso, was the Spanish treasurer who chiefly helped achieve the funds for Columbus’s expedition.

“Most important of all, Kayserling showed that Columbus’s reward was paid out of funds expropriated from Jews being expelled from Spain in 1492, and that the same source—not the Queen’s jewels, as popular myth had it, but her Jews—would defray the costs of his second voyage as well.”

Jonathan D. Sarna

His interpreter, Luis de Torres, had converted into Christianity, but was of a Jewish descent. Certainly, the possibility of other Jews having joined Columbus in his voyage is very likely, especially when Jews were seeking any opportunity to flee from the country that was openly torturing and/or banishing them.

Being a Sephardic Jew, Nathaniel A. Davis, Sonia’s third husband, was also fascinated with this topic. He wrote a play about Columbus, which has yet to be sent to me in its entirety by my proxy researcher. Thankfully, Sonia included a small sample of the play in her essay. Nathaniel also wrote the poem, Cristobal Colón. The poem was published in his volume of religious poetry, The Voice of the Prophet, and will be posted down below. Regrettably, Nathaniel and Sonia’s belief in Columbus as a Jew is not supported factually enough to be held as true, but their patriotism in the deep Jewish roots in America is not wrong.

Well, how does all of this tie into Thanksgiving? According to Maurice David’s book, he explained an incident surrounding Columbus and one of his voyagers, which involved the shooting of a “tuki” (Hebrew name for parrot, but perverted over time into turkey), thought to be a peacock at first. (Jewish Boston) Interestingly enough, Sonia takes this scenario and expounds on it in the form of a play. Unfortunately, it is only a fragment of the play. It is doubtful if the rest will ever be found.

The ancestry of Christopher Columbus shall always remain a mystery. That is, unless his birth certificate miraculous emerges and finally sheds the necessary light on the “Admiral of the Ocean Sea.” (Britannica) Nevertheless, we have many reasons to be grateful and even more reasons to celebrate on this special day. May grace and peace be with you and yours.

Cristobal Colón by Nathaniel A. Davis:

After leafing through The Voice of the Prophet, I found another poem dedicated to Columbus.

El Almirante Colón by Nathaniel A. Davis: