Christopher Columbus statue in London. Photo: wiki commons.

Christopher Columbus was probably Jewish according to a CNN article that refers to several credible sources. On the 508th anniversary of Columbus’s death, scholars have recently discovered that Columbus hid his true faith to survive the Spanish Inquisition.

In March 1492, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand embarked on a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Jewish community in Spain. They ordered 800,000 Jews who refused to convert to Catholicism to leave the country within 4 months. The remaining Jews in Spain either became Catholics or became “Marranos”, meaning swine; Jews who pretended to be Catholics while secretly practicing Judaism. Thousands of Marranos were tortured and killed during the Spanish Inquisition and their property was confiscated.

Historians believe Christopher Columbus was a Marrano who embarked on a voyage to the New World to discover a safe haven for the persecuted Jews. A secondary objective of that voyage was to find gold to finance a crusade to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim control and rebuild the Jewish temple. He was initially planning to set sail on August 2, 1492, on the Jewish holiday of Tisha B’Av, which commemorates the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. He postponed the voyage by a day because Jews would consider it to be unlucky to sail on that day.

Scholars claim that 5 details on Columbus’s will could prove he was Jewish, including the first two which are Jewish customs:
– giving one-tenth of his income to the poor
– providing an anonymous dowry for poor girls
– giving money to a Jew who lived at the entrance of the Lisbon Jewish Quarter
– personally using as well as instructing his heirs to use a triangular signature of dots and letters that resembled inscriptions found on gravestones of Jewish cemeteries in Spain
– leaving money to fund a crusade to liberate the Holy Land

Contrary to popular belief, Columbus’s voyage was not financed by Queen Isabella, but by three prominent Jews. Historians say the first two letters Columbus sent after returning from his trip were to them and not to the Spanish royal family.

Other details that may prove Columbus was Jewish include 12 letters written by Columbus to his son containing the handwritten Hebrew letters bet-hei, meaning b’ezrat Hashem (with God’s help). A letter meant for King Ferdinand did not contain this writing.