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| An Inglorious Columbus (Vining) |
After two decades of research, the team was able to "absolutely confirm" that the human remains found in the Cathedral of Seville, Spain, are those of the famed explorer who died in 1506.
Today, traveling to the same Caribbean islands can be tricky, as anyone caught with contraband can face serious repercussions.
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| I was taught Colon was a heroic Italian |
A search for Columbus' remains was initiated after his body was moved multiple times following his death, with some experts believing he was buried in the Dominican Republic.
"Today it has been possible to verify it with new technologies, so that the previous partial theory that the remains of Seville belong to Christopher Columbus has been definitively confirmed," said Miguel Lorente, a forensic scientist who led the investigation, on Thursday.
While many experts have long believed that Columbus' remains were inside the cathedral's tomb, it wasn't until 2003 that Lorente and historian Marcial Castro were granted permission to open it and discover the previously unidentified bones within.
DNA technology could not accurately provide results by "reading" a tiny bit of genetic material at the time.
The remains of Christopher Columbus's brother Diego and son Hernando, who are also buried at Seville Cathedral, were used by researchers for comparison.
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| Columbus DNA: The genuine origin program will reveal the researchers' findings © Getty |
Columbus's nationality has long been debated in the scientific community, with some suggesting he was Italian.
However, advances in DNA research may finally provide a definitive answer.
While some theories propose that Columbus was born in Poland or Spain, others firmly believe he hailed from Genoa.
Some theories suggest that the famed explorer could have been Scottish, Catalan, or Jewish.
- Related video: Indigenous perspective: The true history of Columbus Day (KPAX Missoula, MT) KPAX Missoula, MT
The findings of this research will be revealed in the "Columbus DNA: The Genuine Origin'" program, set to air on Saturday, Saturday, on Spain's national broadcaster, TVE.While not revealing the results, Lorente confirmed to reporters that the research supports previous theories that the remains in Seville indeed belong to Christopher Columbus.
According to some experts, Columbus was buried in the Dominican Republic. © Getty
The tomb of Christopher Columbus at the Cathedral of Seville © Getty
Despite numerous challenges, particularly the sheer volume of data, Lorente expressed confidence in the research, stating that "the outcome is almost absolutely reliable."
Setting sail from the Spanish port of Palos ["Sticks"] on August 3, 1492, Columbus and his crew of approximately 100 men embarked on a journey in search of the fabled wealth of Asia.
With three ships -- the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria ["the Girl, "the Pint," and "the St. Mary"] -- they ventured far from their intended destination to the other side of the world.
On October 12, 1492, they made landfall [not on mainland America but] in what is now known as the Bahamas. Later that month, Columbus stumbled upon Cuba, erroneously believing it to be mainland China.
Was Columbus Jewish? And does it matter?
(Religion News Service, RNS) — Just in time for Columbus Day, reports emerged on Monday (Oct. 14, 2024) that DNA analysis has revealed that Columbus was a Sephardic Jew.
- Sephardic Jews (Hebrew יְהוּדֵי סְפָרַד, Romanized Yehudei Sfarad, translation "Jews of Spain"), where Sephard is "Spain." These are the Sephardim and Iberian Peninsular Jews, the Jewish diaspora in the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal). The term, which is derived from the Hebrew Sepharad (lit. "Spain"), can also refer to the Jews of the Middle East and North Africa, who were also heavily influenced by Sephardic law and customs. Many Iberian Jews sought refuge in communities, resulting in ethnic and cultural integration over the centuries, now living in Israel (Wiki).
Rumors of this have been floating around the Jewish world for a long time — long enough for all to wonder: Is it true? The definitive essay on the subject comes from Jonathan Sarna of Brandeis University, the preeminent scholar of American Jewish history.
It appeared in Commentary magazine in 1992, marking the 500th anniversary of Columbus’ “discovery” of America.
How did Jewish “Columbus-mania” start?
In 1892, to commemorate the 400th anniversary of Columbus’ voyage, the American Jewish merchant Lazarus Straus and his diplomat son, Oscar Solomon Straus of the elite German-Jewish “Our Crowd,” commissioned Rabbi Meyer (Moritz) Kayserling to research the topic of Columbus’ alleged Jewish identity.
The resultant book was Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries.
Was Columbus Jewish? And does it matter?
Was Columbus Jewish? [Yes, researchers say they now have definitive DNA evidence.] And does it matter? [Well, inserting a race religion ethnic group loose cultural identity into the mythical story of America is important to control that country and use it to take over a chunk of the geopolitical Middle East.]
Let us put this effort into its proper historical context. Like many of their Jewish contemporaries, the Strauses wanted Jews to assimilate into American life.
What better way to do so than to show the supposedly unbreakable bond between Jews and the very origins of the American experience?
Not only that. Oscar Straus believed that if it could be historically proved that Jews had taken an active part in the discovery of America, “this fact would be an answer for all time to come to anti-Semitic tendencies in this country,” Kayserling wrote.
The research behind the claim turned out to be interesting. Kayserling documented that Columbus had significant connections with Jews or recent forced converts from Judaism (conversos), who had supplied him with [expensive] maps, astronomical tables, and nautical instruments.
Some championed his cause before the Spanish crown. Some, such as the convert Luis de Santangel, even supported Columbus’ journey financially.
Four men “of Jewish stock” were found to have accompanied Columbus to the New World (actually, only one of them — interpreter Luis de Torres, who had converted [out of Judaism and in] to Christianity not long before — was of certain Jewish descent).
But was Columbus himself Jewish? [The evidence used to be] circumstantial]. His birth name, Colon, was a common Sephardic Jewish name, but there were [also] non-Jews with the same name.
Columbus also had a mysterious triangular signature, which some have dubiously called a key to his Jewish identity.
The family was in the weaving business, which was frequently associated with Jews, and like many Spanish conversos, Columbus and his family were highly secretive, taking great pains to conceal their background, suggesting that they had something to hide.
But these claims are inconclusive, as are the facts that Columbus associated with Jews and even left a small legacy to a Jew, knew Jewish mystical sources, and occasionally linked his experiences to events in ancient Jewish history.
There was one big Jewish link in Columbus’ life. He had an illicit relationship with Beatrice Enriquez, the mother of his son Ferdinand and, in his biographer Salvador de Madariaga’s view, herself a secret Jew.
As for the DNA testing: In my humble opinion, meh. [So what if he's a Jew? What does that matter? Who cares if he committed genocide and raped Indians? He could have done that as a European or a swarthy Spaniard, not because he was a Jew.]
It proves some Jewish genetic [descent and] presence, but that would not be unusual. [And so what if he was?] There is Jewish DNA all over the place.
[We get around; we're very lusty sometimes, especially as sailors in olden times, not today, except for Epstein, and Weinstein, and others in Hollywood and the financial industry, but that's a total coincidence not because we feel entitled.] More than that: If Columbus was indeed a Jew, it would be a substantial lack of Jewish mazal for this to suddenly see the light of day — again.
Because Columbus has not been a hero for quite some time. More than 30 years ago, Sarna wrote: In Was the Discoverer of America Jewish?, a writer in Moment magazine reminds his readers that Columbus’s discovery was “disastrous” for the Native American population, leading to millions of deaths, and that, in addition, the explorer introduced into the New World the scourge of slavery.
“Do we really want to claim Columbus?,” Moment’s editors ask. And Judith Laikin Elkin, writing in Hadassah, has made a similar point:
The search for Jewish ancestry for Columbus is particularly untimely now, when Native Americans are drawing our attention to the genocide that paved the way for the creation of our New World. So we might ask: Why now? Why the sudden resurgence of Jewish Columbus-mania? [Is it because science made a breakthrough or because of our current genocide in Palestine, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Egypt, and soon in Iran and Saudi Arabia?]
When it comes to historical figures, Columbus is not the only would-be-maybe Jew. There had been some speculation that Abraham Lincoln had Jewish ancestry [and he was against slavery, unlike Columbus who was all for slavery and raping the slaves and killing them to keep them in line].
In my mind, it goes back to the phenomenon that I call “Jew-collecting.” It is the habit of seeing someone famous and seeking to confirm that person’s Jewish identity: “Hey, did you know that X is Jewish?”
It is also the need to see those people publicly affirming that identity (e.g., Jerry Seinfeld’s activism for Israel after Oct. 7), especially when we see so many Jewish celebrities remaining silent.
But there is something deeper going on. This is not about the alleged [science be damned] Jewish identity of Christopher Columbus. This is about the real identity of American Jews. Let us go back to the original impetus and inspiration for the “Jewish Columbus” thing.
...[We're] victims of social antisemitism. The new Jewish “Columbus mania,” the feverish enthusiasm at identifying the great explorer as an M.O.T. (Member Of the Tribe) is a vestige of Jewish ethnic fervor.
It will resonate much more with Jews over 60 than with Jews under 40, who are likely to yawn at the idea of a Jewish Columbus. (They will have never known the old Yiddish epithet, uttered by immigrants who were disappointed at their lack of success in their new land: “A klug tsu Columbus” — “a curse on Columbus.”
That disappointment with what America had taken from the Jews, 65 years ago, became transformed into Philip Roth’s classic novella, Goodbye Columbus.) But let us understand the timing of this new announcement regarding Columbus.
Yes, [it's] in time for Columbus Day. And yes, [it's] Yom Kippur. And, most certainly, in the week after the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 [and the start of our genocide on Palestinians], and its accompanying tsunami of antisemitism. More
- Here are the best 30 pics of 2024 as shared by Siena International Photo Awards
- Sensational claim on Columbus' ethnicity can't be verified, say [pro-Israel] independent 'experts'
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- Was Columbus Jewish? (Yes, according to genetic science). And does it matter? (Yes, but let's minimize it and say it has nothing to do with anything so no one's feelings get hurt)
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