19 ms·

Christopher Columbus may have been Spanish and Jewish, documentary says

124 points by ywvcbk 2y ago

golergka 2y ago
My jewish sephardic family was compelled by country's authorities to finance the expedition only to have been expelled (with the whole community) right when he embarked, and of course never saw any of the money back. I really doubt that he had any relation to the community at all. He was just an instrument of robbing it.
- aguaviva 2y ago
  That's quite a connection. Then again, the ultimate result of that effort was that the Jewish diaspora (as a whole), a fair chunk of it anyway, ended up securing places to settle in North America, infinitely safer than Europe would prove to be centuries hence. So there's that. BTW I finally followed up in regard to that guy with the beard, if it's still of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41794563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41794563
  - golergka 2y ago
    A couple of years ago I made a bot to notify me about HN comment replies, but it's kind of abandoned now. I probably should get it up and running again, checking this manually is such a hassle https://github.com/golergka/hn-comment-bot https://github.com/golergka/hn-comment-bot
RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
Interestingly Columbus set sail on the day the Jews were expelled from Spain.
- oh_my_goodness 2y ago
  The same year, sure. But the same day?
  - kamikazeturtles 2y ago
    I'd find it hard to believe all the cities in Spain decided to expel the Jewish people all on the same day. The inquisition began decades earlier so there probably were indications something bad was going to happen
    - lolinder 2y ago
      They're probably referring to the Alhambra Decree [0], which did expel all Jews by a set date. That date was the end of July, and Columbus sailed on 3 August, so it's very close but not quite the same date. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree
- kamikazeturtles 2y ago
  India must've sounded nicer than the Ottoman Empire
  - 6stringronin 2y ago
    Why ? They were allowed to practice in Spain's and even retained positions of influence. Also what's the India connection?
  - asveikau 2y ago
    I thought sephardim scattered into a lot of places, including elsewhere in Europe (even places like Amsterdam) and North Africa. Not to mention conversos that stayed put.
    - 77pt77 2y ago
      >even places like Amsterdam Especially places like Amsterdam. That's why they built a giant Synagogue there.
      - asveikau 2y ago
        I say "even" because the stereotype is Southern Europe, Turkey, or North Africa. The further north you go in Europe, the more Jewish and Ashkenazi identities get merged and blurred in people's minds. So the history of sephardim in Netherlands goes against the stereotypes.
bitcurious 2y ago
Columbus was famously a devout catholic; his DNA suggests that he was of Sephardic Jewish descent, most likely from a family that underwent a forced conversion.
- bbor 2y ago
  I already posted below, but since you probably won't scroll down and I hate to see people get tricked: I would take this article with a massive grain of salt. Not "definitely wrong", but perhaps "of very dubious origin, making unusually strong claims based on unpublished, inconsistently-described evidence". For context, the "Columbus was Jewish" assertion is part of a broader "Columbus was secretly Spanish/Catalonian" fight they've been having for a while (which isn't surprising given the region's generally positive recollection of their "glory days" of genocide and slavery), as it's supposed to preclude him from being Italian. Besides that, as an American who spent a semester in Spain and took a class focused on religious diversity specifically on the peninsula: your analysis is definitely possible, but there was also plenty of Jewish people practicing in secret throughout the reconquista. Thus the inquisition, even! The Reconquista took hundreds of years and saw multiple waves of anti-Jewish laws throughout the various Christian kingdoms, from taxes to restrictions to the famous expulsions, so there was plenty of precedent to learn from. I'd be curious to hear from any actual experts on how the Spanish viewed national origin, and whether that played a significant role in religious persecution. AFAIK they welcomed converts with open arms (especially Muslim ones), which makes me even more dubious that Columbus would choose to repeatedly claim to be from Italy just to hide his Jewish ancestry. He was 100% verifiably a practicing Catholic, isn't that all that should have mattered to his peers? But I'm walking pretty blind here.
  - ywvcbk 2y ago
    > AFAIK they welcomed converts with open arms (especially Muslim ones), While that was seemingly true in the 1400s when ex-Jewish Conversos had sometimes significant economic and even political power. That had changed by the 1500s, antisemitism (same applying to Muslim converts) became much more focused on race and not just religion. Conversos and Moriscos were persecuted and discriminated culminating in the expulsion of 1609 (which targeted hundreds of thousands of people who had technically been Christians for the past ~100 years). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpieza_de_sangre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpieza_de_sangre In some cases it was pretty extreme and not that dissimilar to the one-drop rule in the US (and the decentralized pseudo-segregation wasn’t that dissimilar either). Descendants of Jewish and Muslim converts were even banned from emigrating into the American Colonies a few decades after Columbus. It likely wasn’t as bad yet in the 1490s but had Columbus Jewish origin (assume that’s actually true) been know he probably would have faced significant barriers in holding political office or even attracting investment for his expeditions.
mistrial9 2y ago
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kamikazeturtles 2y ago
The Spanish inquisition began in the 1470s so it makes sense he would hide his ethnicity. What's really interesting however, is how the same year Columbus sailed the ocean blue, 1492, was when the Ottoman Empire accepted 60,000 Jewish refugees from Spain. Columbus must not have been very religious. It would've probably been a much smarter decision, in terms of self preservation, to move to the Ottoman Empire.
- afavour 2y ago
  > Columbus must not have been very religious. He was incredibly religious. In his Catholicism. If anything this is just proof that reading too deeply, and especially solely, into anyone’s DNA history is a mistake. Plenty of people have a background unrelated to their lives or the way they perceive themselves.
  - lolinder 2y ago
    Agreed that it's important not to read too much into this about Columbus as a person, but if this is true there are plenty of interesting things to draw from it. It would suggest that he probably came from a family that converted to Catholicism (given the time period, probably under duress). Had his ancestors made a different choice Columbus himself may have been expelled from Spain shortly before he sailed on August 3.
    - netdevnet 2y ago
      is it so rare to think that maybe he did it himself rather it being passed down?
  - someotherperson 2y ago
    It adds a wild irony to the story considering he's responsible for the expansion of the Spanish and introduced Catholicism to an entire continent. Someone who was punished by the Spanish and forced to convert a generation or two ago turns into its champion and spreads it elsewhere?
stelliosk 2y ago
There is a theory he was from the Greek island of Chios. "In 1982, Ruth Durlacher hypothesised that Chios was Christopher Columbus's birthplace.[64] Columbus himself said he was from the Republic of Genoa, which included the island of Chios at the time. Columbus was friendly with a number of Chian Genoese families, referenced Chios in his writings and used the Greek language for some of his notes.[65] 'Columbus' remains a common surname on Chios. Other common Greek spellings are: Kouloumbis and Couloumbis." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios "A New Theory Clarifying the Identity OF Christopher Columbus: A Byzantine Prince from Chios, Greece. by Ruth G Durlacher-Wolper 1982(Published by The New World Museum, San Salvador, Bahamas" https://www.geraceresearchcentre.com/pdfs/1stColumbus/13_Durlacher-WolperRG_1stColumbus.pdf https://www.geraceresearchcentre.com/pdfs/1stColumbus/13_Dur...
fsckboy 2y ago
technical who-is-a-Jew type question, which is thoroughly intertwingled with European history: the Jewish diaspora were only the diaspora after they were kicked out of Israel by the Romans (in something like 70AD), and even then, only after they maintained their identity in the diaspora (c.f. the majority of other conquered peoples who did not maintain an independent identity) Before that they were just the Jews, which was more of a nationality than anything else (a nationality that had a covenant with their God, but many nationalities at that time had such). "Sephardic Jew" is a term most used to describe Jews who were kicked out of the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Inquisition and Reconquista. The Iberian peninsula had had a thorough conquering by Muslims until the euro-christian reconquering, the Reconquista, wherein the last of the Muslims were kicked out, and then the Jews too for good measure, which kicking out occurred at exactly the same time that Columbus sailed for the East (by going west). Other diaspora Jews lived in Muslim lands and are known as Mizrahi Jews (Mizrahi being some form of the word for Egypt which is also the word for East iirc) Was there some distinction (theological or genetic) between Miszrahi Jews and Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews before they were driven out of Spain? And Columbus was born in Genoa (his house is still there) and so, was he one of these types of Jews or are the different typenames just what we call them today?
- sabas_ge 2y ago
  >his house is still there It's not really his house, but a reconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus_House
- ywvcbk 2y ago
  > out occurred at exactly the same time that Columbus sailed for the East (by going west). Which is notable why exactly? Surely both Columbus and his investors were hoping to return. Who would give all that money to a descendant of Jewish converts let alone someone who might have been affected by the expulsion decree directly? Columbus might have had Jewish ancestors a few generations back but I don’t think we can conclude anything else based on these findings. Especially not that he or his parents were actually practicing Jews.
- p3rls 2y ago
bbor 2y ago
...I'm a little suspicious. Spain, Portugal, and Italy have been fighting fiercely to claim cultural credit for Columbus for my whole life (hundreds of years, even?) and some of the quotes in this article display some bias on the sides of the researchers. It's possibly a result of me using Firefox autotranslate out of laziness, but: The theory of the Colombo Cristóforo, born in Genoa, raised in Genoa, educated in Genoa, is false because all the very important historians of Italy have written black on white that it is impossible for this our Colombo to be Jewish. There is a total incompatibility... But then, between 10,000 and 15,000 [Jewish people lived in] the Italian peninsula [at the time]. Obviously it's an interesting point, but the certainty of the first statement set off alarm bells for me. Especially because they're placing his origin in Aragon, specifically; the Spanish are very nationalist, but the Catalonians are even more nationalist as a way to fight back. Very, very far from damning, but certainly makes these surprising claims a little suspicious. In terms of critical commentary, seemingly there is some: https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cristobal-colon-pudo-ser-un-judio-de-valencia-o-no.html https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cri... It's pointed out that although the professor that did this DNA study is indeed an academic[1] specializing in the relevant field--which cannot be said of the main proponent, who appears to be a super biased enthusiast [2][3][4]--he hasn't actually published any of these findings yet, instead choosing to announce them via his own "thriller" TV show. Right off the bat, that's the absolute opposite of what a typical scientist would do with absurdly controversial findings -- and apparently this is the same pattern he's followed since 2005 on this topic, publishing no data of any kind in actual journals, just "announcing" various findings. He does say "The scientific results, he says, will be presented at a press conference probably at the end of November", but... that's sus af, as the kids say. Beyond that, the DNA analysis itself seems to be in doubt: After the 2003 exhumation, no DNA could be extracted from the bones, Bottle says. The anthropologist says he stopped collaborating with the research team after those first analyses and has not wanted to participate anymore. Carracedo recalls that the DNA that came to him was tremendously degraded and later disassociated from the project. He says he won't give his opinion on Lorente's new results until there is a serious scientific study published in a specialized journal. The most damning evidence is non-circumstancial/character-based, of course, and it's what originally had me scratching my head in doubt: In any case, possessing a gene, haplogroup, or haplotype associated with Jewish or Sephardic ancestry does not challenge the historical sources that support Columbus' birthplace in Genoa. Furthermore, it provides no information about the religious beliefs held by Columbus' close relatives (parents, grandparents, etc.), the researcher emphasizes... there is no Y chromosome that can be defined exclusively as Jewish-sephary, Chambers argues. Even if the total DNA of an individual was recovered, it would still be impossible to reach definitive conclusions about its exact geographical origin. In other words: that's not really how genetics works... Thanks for sharing OP, this was a fascinating little dive. I, for one, will stick with the consensus view that this idiotic monster of a person was from Italy, until this researcher publishes some peer-reviewed results! [1] https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uZXz5-sAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uZXz5-sAAAAJ... [2] He hasn't published basically anything: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=14621439200 https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=1462143920... [3] Here's some of his (English!) writing, which IMO speaks for itself: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364304815_COLUMBUS_WAS_A_SEPHARDIC_JEW https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364304815_COLUMBUS_... [4] ...and this book title gives away the game, which is probably why it isn't mentioned in the linked article: https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-catalanitat-de-colom/9788494135200/2178634 https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-catalanitat-de-colom/9...
jorgemendes 2y ago
Well, just the best fit for being presented in the Spanish national day but, it's more complicated than that...of course. What was presented was not science. https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cristobal-colon-pudo-ser-un-judio-de-valencia-o-no.html https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cri...
profsummergig 2y ago
> “The DNA indicates that Christopher Columbus’s origin lay in the western Mediterranean,” said the researcher. “If there weren’t Jews in Genoa in the 15th century, the likelihood that he was from there is minimal. Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula, which makes things very tenuous.” Does anyone else think that this is a poorly argued piece? Being Jewish, and having some Jewish DNA: are they the same thing? Is it not possible that many many people in Genoa could have had Jewish ancestors? After all, most of Jesus's disciples were Jewish (please correct me if I'm wrong).
- dumbo-octopus 2y ago
  All of Jesus’s original disciples were Jewish. And you can be certainly be Jewish without having Jewish DNA, but there’s some controversy as to whether the reverse is true.
  - MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
    David Cross has a funny [bit][1] about whether the reverse is true. [1]: https://youtu.be/z09So1j4kpk?t=378 https://youtu.be/z09So1j4kpk?t=378
    - Bulb7187 2y ago
      Is he not aware of the concept of ethnicity? Native Americans, Romani, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, and Sikhs tie religion and ethnicity.
      - MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
        His is a very American perspective. Also, a comedian spinning his experience into material.
    - rafram 2y ago
      I like his work, but his bits on religion and Jewish identity in particular really miss the mark. He comes off as quite ignorant.
JoeAltmaier 2y ago
Oops. There go the big Columbus Day celebrations, sponsored by Italian-American societies.
- toyg 2y ago
  The fact that he was Italian and Catholic is beyond dispute. The possibility that he might have had some Jewish blood, doesn't really change anything except for the most tribal-inclined people (who typically make for terrible historians anyway). Hell, the Mediterranean had been a big melting pot for almost 2000 years at that point, practically anyone would have had some Jewish blood, some Greek blood, some Italian blood, some Spanish blood, some North-African blood...
chipdart 2y ago
From the article: > “Unfortunately, from a scientific point of view, we can’t really evaluate what was in the documentary because they offered no data from the analysis whatsoever,” Antonio Alonso, a geneticist and former director of Spain’s National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences told El País. So, baseless speculation used by the Spanish regime to claim Christopher Columbus as Spanish during the Spanish national day? The funny part is that none of this matters for things other than nationalist talking points.
- juunpp 2y ago
  How does a Jew discovering the Americas benefit the Spanish regime when the Spanish Catholic monarchy precisely kicked all Jews and Muslims from the peninsula with their ill-named "reconquista"? If this turns out to be true, then it'd be rather embarrassing. Presumably this Lorente has more evidence he hasn't put on display, so it isn't completely baseless either. It's certainly sketchy and not very scientific, though, per the same criticism outlined in the article. I also don't understand why people get a boner with Columbus. It is since the Greeks that people knew the world was not flat, and the vikings (presumably Leif Erikson) landed in Canada much earlier after a quick hop from Greeland. The only questions left at that point were: how big is that land over there, and can you get to India traveling West? It's all good and stuff, but not mind-blowing to me.
  - shsbdksn 2y ago
    Ill named?
    - juunpp 2y ago
      Ill-named because it wasn't a reconquest of anything; Spain did not exist as a nation anytime prior to that. It was a bunch of tribes originally, followed by the Greeks settling in, then the Romans, then the Visigoths, and then the Arabs. A mesh of many cultures until the main kingdoms united and wiped the land of "non-Christian blood". And thereafter the Spanish government has gone back and forth trying to wipe the remaining cultures in the peninsula to impose its own, as can be learned from the recent history of the past century. Nothing to be proud of, really. I actually hope Columbus turns out to be Jew so they stop talking about him.
gnabgib 2y ago
Discussion (50 points, 22 hours ago, 46 conments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939
- pimlottc 2y ago
  The previous discussion was from before the full tests results were released.
  - gnabgib 2y ago
    This article is also from before the release of any test results: “Normally, you send your article to a scientific journal,” he told El País. “An editor is then assigned to the piece and at least three independent reviewers examine the work and decide whether it’s scientifically valid or not. If it is, it gets published and so the rest of the scientific community can say whether they agree with it or not.
gnabgib 2y ago
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- deleted 2y ago
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woodpanel 2y ago
> Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula Wait, so the name „ghetto“ wasn’t contrived there? Snark aside, is there any proof or qualification delivered with that quite important yet ambiguous side node, that there supposedly wasn’t any significant jewish presence in Italy?
- adastra22 2y ago
  Depends on how you define a “big population,” no? Prior to 1492 a lot of Jews had been driven out of Italy, and the remaining communities were quite small. Italian city states took in a lot of Jewish refugees from Spain after the 1492 expulsion. The first ghetto was in 1516. But that doesn’t line up with Columbus’ chronology.
playingalong 2y ago
> acknowledged that he had not been able to pinpoint Columbus’s place of birth Nit pick. I don't know it for sure, but if he was able to meet a king and a queen eventually, I assume he came from a wealthy family. For wealthy families at that time, it wouldn't be an issue to travel. Especially if you turn out to be the most known traveler in human's history. Thus, I fail to see how come we can even think of establishing the place of birth based on DNA. A likely area where his family came from - sure. But POB?
77pt77 2y ago
He was probably a portuguese jew or nobleman. This place is a a good hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba,_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba,_Portugal A place called Cuba in Portugal that predates the arrival to the new world by centuries. These ideas have been floating around for a long time: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/01/19/dna-testing-of-skeleton-may-prove-christopher-columbus-was-really-portuguese/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/01/19/dn...
cjbenedikt 2y ago
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cjbenedikt 2y ago
Unpublished, not peer reviewed. Some skeptik academics.
gizajob 2y ago
a.k.a an Italian
- deleted 2y ago
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beardyw 2y ago
The thing is that as our number of ancestors expands going back, the gene pool gets ever smaller. Historically we are all related in the end.
tdeck 2y ago
Just wanted to drop the fact that there seems to be a historical consensus that isn't represented in these comments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher...
- toyg 2y ago
  > The evidence of Columbus's origins in Genoa is overwhelming: almost no other figure of his class or designation has left so clear a paper trail in the archives.
dang 2y ago
Recent and related: DNA study confirms Christopher Columbus’s remains are entombed in Seville - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939 - Oct 2024 (66 comments)
egberts 2y ago
Interesting that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree to kick the Jews out ot Spain shortly after Christopher Columbus, a Sephardic Jew, reached the Americas. This was even after the Jews heavily funded the Spaniard military in the conquest of Gibraltar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree
- nudpiedo 2y ago
  The purpose was to convert most of population to christianity to achieve cultural unity, and the ones who wouldn't convert had to leave. Usually it is explained only as an expulsion of the jews. P.D: there are many theories around Gibraltar, specially since it was during succession war and the country was in a civil war.
  - dullcrisp 2y ago
    I think it would have been more polite if they all converted to Judaism is cultural unity was the goal.
- susidhfjcbd 2y ago
  > This was even after the Jews heavily funded the Spaniard military in the conquest of Gibraltar. To be fair, it was also after they aided the initial Muslim conquest of Spain and assisted the new Muslim rulers in subjugating the native Christian population.
- slightwinder 2y ago
  Your history seems wrong. The Alhambra Decree was issued on 31 March 1492. Columbus sealed his deal in April 1492, and started the first(!) expedition on 3 August 1492. And it seems he only reached the continent of America itself on his fourth expedition.
transfire 2y ago
Oh brother. I’m sure most of the European world has some Jewish descendants somewhere in there blood line. Hell, even Hilter did! Why is that a big deal? As if having some Jewish descendant makes everything you ever did a Jewish accomplishment.
- woodruffw 2y ago
  I don’t think anyone besides a few Spanish and Italian ultranationalists are interested in claiming Columbus’s “accomplishments.” Any evidence of Columbus being Jewish is mostly interesting for anthropological and historical reasons, not chest-beating ones.
chucke 2y ago
Spain still working on the national identity while not reconciling that its two most famous sailors were a portuguese and a genovese. You can see it in claims like these or the internal reframing of the magellan voyage as the "magellan-elcano expedition ".
- franciscop 2y ago
  OTOH there's well known and documented anti-Spanish propaganda during the centuries by basically the rest of Europe (Protestants specifically), so I start to doubt claims from both sides (disclaimer: I'm Spaniard): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend
  - shsbdksn 2y ago
    The English and Elizabeth projected their crimes onto Spain. Proof is in the pudding where is the percentage of natives highest? Where Spaniards colonized (Mexico, Bolivia, Peru)? Or the Brits (Virginia, Connecticut, all of Canada except Quebec)? (Disclaimer, I'm... I don't know what I am)
    - ywvcbk 2y ago
      Presumably the population density in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru was much higher. Also Spanish emigration into their colonies was quite low and they were much spread out. e.g. more English/British people emigrated to the Americas in the 1600s than Spanish despite the fact that they controlled many times less territory.
      - hecrogon 2y ago
        Spanish empire caused a huge impact in the American continent but even so, the focus on seizing wealth and lands competed with the fact that the Spanish doctrine wanted to extend the Christendom. However anglo-saxos have established a more clear separation between colonizers and native population. I would compare what you mention about Mexico and Bolivia with how the decline of the native population in California accelerated after the independence of Mexico. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Native_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Native_Californi...
phendrenad2 2y ago
Someday people will be having debates about the ethnicity of every prominent person in the current era. That's a depressing thought.
- eddiewithzato 2y ago
  Nah the new wave of ancient DNA analysis since 2010 has been a game changer. Especially with euroasian history. It showed us how populations migrated and how and when admixture formed. Including identifying the yamnaya admixture in modern populations If they actually have Columbus’s DNA intact with a good SNP resolution, it will be trivial to find out what % of jewish he is in his autosomal DNA. They can and should release it publicly as part of their paper as well. So people can confirm their hypothesis
  - Tor3 2y ago
    .. except that there isn't really a thing such as Jewish DNA. Other than that, yes we're mostly all a mixture of people travelling and migrating and settling down and moving, and they came from all over over the centuries and millennia.
    - eddiewithzato 2y ago
      Y-DNA clades can and are associated with certain ethnic groups. Then once you confirm that, you simply need to model their autosomal DNA. And viola, you can very reliably determine if someone is Jewish, Greek, Italian, etc
      - Tor3 2y ago
        There's no way it's as easy and clear-cut as that. Nothing I've seen says it is. Citation needed.
tracer4201 2y ago
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temptemptemp111 2y ago
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amirhirsch 2y ago
Another indication that Columbus was part of the Jewish community is that the Jewish financiers Luis de Santángel and Gabriel Sánchez advanced interest-free loans to finance the journey.
- toyg 2y ago
  That's actually a point against: Jewish financiers would have expected interest, surely. It's Catholic ones who had to loan without interest.
  - amirhirsch 2y ago
    You are not logic-ing correctly. The financiers were Jewish. Jews do not charge interest to other Jews; if Columbus were not Jewish they would have charged interest. This is written in Deuteronomy 23:20-21 as well as Leviticus and Exodus and also discussed by Maimonides
    - HKH2 2y ago
      > Jews do not charge interest to other Jews Even now?
      - qingcharles 2y ago
        Yes. Similarly with Muslims too. It makes getting financing for things that need loans (e.g. houses) trickier and sometimes open to exploitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba
        6stringronin 2y ago
        Except Islam dictates not taking interest from anyone, even though institutions try some not so clever work a rounds that end up being interest rebranded.
      - amirhirsch 2y ago
        Yes. There are many Jewish lending organizations designed around the principle that loaning money to establish a new business is the highest form of charity (see Maimonides 8 levels of giving). For example, there is a 127-year-old organization based in San Francisco that offers loans up to $50,000. The expectation is once someone establishes themselves they will contribute back to the lending organization. The workaround to halachic rules of interest that is applied in Israeli banking is equity co-ownership where the lender is paid back for their ownership shares at an established interest rate; the term for this is called “heter iska.”
renegade-otter 2y ago
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zxcvbnm69 2y ago
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zimmen 2y ago
This certainly smells like a History Channel "documentary" to me! Right up there with Ancient Aliens and the like. - Analysis that is not shared to review - Data that is not shared for review - Broad assumptions that are quickly narrowed down to "facts" - There is "more evidence but we can't show you because.... reasons"
- namaria 2y ago
  Besides the idea that DNA can show from 500 years away that a person came from one or another side of a modern border is just not understanding how any of this works.
- juunpp 2y ago
  And the fact that this pseudo-science was broadcasted on national television is a disgrace for Spain and embarrassing for the Spaniards quoted in the article who are trying to do actual science.
aurelien 2y ago
This is stupid and here is why, you are Jewish from the blood of your mother, or his mother is Corsican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Fontanarossa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Fontanarossa
InDubioProRubio 2y ago
Smells very much of the villains of history anti-semitic narratives of the left in the past.
slv77 2y ago
Spanish scholars have speculated that Columbus was a crypto-Jew. The DNA analysis could have potentially ruled out that theory. https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewish/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewis...
- cultofmetatron 2y ago
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  - day2punk 2y ago
    hahaha what good joke
qwery 2y ago
The "subtitle" / honest headline sums it up so well, I'm not sure what all the text below it is for: > Claim raises idea [...] but experts view it with caution
istultus 2y ago
Makes sense. Now that the Graun's chief enemy is Israel and Colonialism, why not combine two favored targets into one hateful guy? I'm also pretty sure he was cis-gendered.
- myth_drannon 2y ago
  yes, I was just seeing some initial whisper that Columbus was a Zionist and jews to blame for the slave trade and genocide of Americas natives.
- throwpoaster 2y ago
  What's "Graun" -- wikipedia says a composer. What's the connection? I like the sound of the word.
  - eo3x0 2y ago
    It’s a nickname of the Guardian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graun
    - throwpoaster 2y ago
      TIL
rlewkov 2y ago
And then again he may not have been Spanish and Jewish.
slightwinder 2y ago
Why are people so obsessed with the ethnic of a slightly relevant guy from 500 years ago? Is there some relevance in this?
- wpasc 2y ago
  Agreed that his ethnicity is a silly topic to be discussed, but calling Christopher Columbus a "slightly" relevant guy definitely feels like a stretch.
  - the_gorilla 2y ago
    Apparently discovering new islands isn't what it used to be.
  - slightwinder 2y ago
    He was a small gear in a long chain of events. If not Columbus, someone else would likely have found the New World. It was the age of (Europeans) Discovery after all, where many people were sailing the world and finding new routes and lands.
    - lazyeye 2y ago
      This same logic applies to every discovery in all of human history.
      - Thiez 2y ago
        Sure. This is just Great Man theory [1] in action. It's a bit absurd, once you know about it you see it everywhere. It's especially distasteful when it's about people who 'discovered' places, because the next step was usually the subjugation or genocide of the people already living in the discovered place. But we still celebrate the explorers as heroes. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
    - cafard 2y ago
      Indeed. Next thing somebody will be making a fuss about Isaac Newton.
throw4847285 2y ago
I'm extremely skeptical. A family member studied Columbus's diaries back in grad school and has long suspected he was a Converso, but this is clearly the worst kind of sensationalist journalism. And we already know for a fact that other members of the expedition were Conversos and they were partially motivated by their desire to get out from under the thumb of the Spanish Crown. Academics have long examined the confluence of the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain and the Columbian Exchange, and Columbus's heritage doesn't really change any of it.

124 points by ywvcbk 2y ago

My jewish sephardic family was compelled by country's authorities to finance the expedition only to have been expelled (with the whole community) right when he embarked, and of course never saw any of the money back. I really doubt that he had any relation to the community at all. He was just an instrument of robbing it.

aguaviva 2y ago
That's quite a connection. Then again, the ultimate result of that effort was that the Jewish diaspora (as a whole), a fair chunk of it anyway, ended up securing places to settle in North America, infinitely safer than Europe would prove to be centuries hence. So there's that. BTW I finally followed up in regard to that guy with the beard, if it's still of interest: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41794563 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41794563
- golergka 2y ago
  A couple of years ago I made a bot to notify me about HN comment replies, but it's kind of abandoned now. I probably should get it up and running again, checking this manually is such a hassle https://github.com/golergka/hn-comment-bot https://github.com/golergka/hn-comment-bot

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago

Interestingly Columbus set sail on the day the Jews were expelled from Spain.

oh_my_goodness 2y ago
The same year, sure. But the same day?
- kamikazeturtles 2y ago
  I'd find it hard to believe all the cities in Spain decided to expel the Jewish people all on the same day. The inquisition began decades earlier so there probably were indications something bad was going to happen
  - lolinder 2y ago
    They're probably referring to the Alhambra Decree [0], which did expel all Jews by a set date. That date was the end of July, and Columbus sailed on 3 August, so it's very close but not quite the same date. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree
kamikazeturtles 2y ago
India must've sounded nicer than the Ottoman Empire
- 6stringronin 2y ago
  Why ? They were allowed to practice in Spain's and even retained positions of influence. Also what's the India connection?
- asveikau 2y ago
  I thought sephardim scattered into a lot of places, including elsewhere in Europe (even places like Amsterdam) and North Africa. Not to mention conversos that stayed put.
  - 77pt77 2y ago
    >even places like Amsterdam Especially places like Amsterdam. That's why they built a giant Synagogue there.
    - asveikau 2y ago
      I say "even" because the stereotype is Southern Europe, Turkey, or North Africa. The further north you go in Europe, the more Jewish and Ashkenazi identities get merged and blurred in people's minds. So the history of sephardim in Netherlands goes against the stereotypes.

bitcurious 2y ago

Columbus was famously a devout catholic; his DNA suggests that he was of Sephardic Jewish descent, most likely from a family that underwent a forced conversion.

bbor 2y ago
I already posted below, but since you probably won't scroll down and I hate to see people get tricked: I would take this article with a massive grain of salt. Not "definitely wrong", but perhaps "of very dubious origin, making unusually strong claims based on unpublished, inconsistently-described evidence". For context, the "Columbus was Jewish" assertion is part of a broader "Columbus was secretly Spanish/Catalonian" fight they've been having for a while (which isn't surprising given the region's generally positive recollection of their "glory days" of genocide and slavery), as it's supposed to preclude him from being Italian. Besides that, as an American who spent a semester in Spain and took a class focused on religious diversity specifically on the peninsula: your analysis is definitely possible, but there was also plenty of Jewish people practicing in secret throughout the reconquista. Thus the inquisition, even! The Reconquista took hundreds of years and saw multiple waves of anti-Jewish laws throughout the various Christian kingdoms, from taxes to restrictions to the famous expulsions, so there was plenty of precedent to learn from. I'd be curious to hear from any actual experts on how the Spanish viewed national origin, and whether that played a significant role in religious persecution. AFAIK they welcomed converts with open arms (especially Muslim ones), which makes me even more dubious that Columbus would choose to repeatedly claim to be from Italy just to hide his Jewish ancestry. He was 100% verifiably a practicing Catholic, isn't that all that should have mattered to his peers? But I'm walking pretty blind here.
- ywvcbk 2y ago
  > AFAIK they welcomed converts with open arms (especially Muslim ones), While that was seemingly true in the 1400s when ex-Jewish Conversos had sometimes significant economic and even political power. That had changed by the 1500s, antisemitism (same applying to Muslim converts) became much more focused on race and not just religion. Conversos and Moriscos were persecuted and discriminated culminating in the expulsion of 1609 (which targeted hundreds of thousands of people who had technically been Christians for the past ~100 years). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpieza_de_sangre https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limpieza_de_sangre In some cases it was pretty extreme and not that dissimilar to the one-drop rule in the US (and the decentralized pseudo-segregation wasn’t that dissimilar either). Descendants of Jewish and Muslim converts were even banned from emigrating into the American Colonies a few decades after Columbus. It likely wasn’t as bad yet in the 1490s but had Columbus Jewish origin (assume that’s actually true) been know he probably would have faced significant barriers in holding political office or even attracting investment for his expeditions.

mistrial9 2y ago

[flagged]

kamikazeturtles 2y ago

The Spanish inquisition began in the 1470s so it makes sense he would hide his ethnicity. What's really interesting however, is how the same year Columbus sailed the ocean blue, 1492, was when the Ottoman Empire accepted 60,000 Jewish refugees from Spain. Columbus must not have been very religious. It would've probably been a much smarter decision, in terms of self preservation, to move to the Ottoman Empire.

afavour 2y ago
> Columbus must not have been very religious. He was incredibly religious. In his Catholicism. If anything this is just proof that reading too deeply, and especially solely, into anyone’s DNA history is a mistake. Plenty of people have a background unrelated to their lives or the way they perceive themselves.
- lolinder 2y ago
  Agreed that it's important not to read too much into this about Columbus as a person, but if this is true there are plenty of interesting things to draw from it. It would suggest that he probably came from a family that converted to Catholicism (given the time period, probably under duress). Had his ancestors made a different choice Columbus himself may have been expelled from Spain shortly before he sailed on August 3.
  - netdevnet 2y ago
    is it so rare to think that maybe he did it himself rather it being passed down?
- someotherperson 2y ago
  It adds a wild irony to the story considering he's responsible for the expansion of the Spanish and introduced Catholicism to an entire continent. Someone who was punished by the Spanish and forced to convert a generation or two ago turns into its champion and spreads it elsewhere?

stelliosk 2y ago

There is a theory he was from the Greek island of Chios. "In 1982, Ruth Durlacher hypothesised that Chios was Christopher Columbus's birthplace.[64] Columbus himself said he was from the Republic of Genoa, which included the island of Chios at the time. Columbus was friendly with a number of Chian Genoese families, referenced Chios in his writings and used the Greek language for some of his notes.[65] 'Columbus' remains a common surname on Chios. Other common Greek spellings are: Kouloumbis and Couloumbis." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chios "A New Theory Clarifying the Identity OF Christopher Columbus: A Byzantine Prince from Chios, Greece. by Ruth G Durlacher-Wolper 1982(Published by The New World Museum, San Salvador, Bahamas" https://www.geraceresearchcentre.com/pdfs/1stColumbus/13_Durlacher-WolperRG_1stColumbus.pdf https://www.geraceresearchcentre.com/pdfs/1stColumbus/13_Dur...

fsckboy 2y ago

technical who-is-a-Jew type question, which is thoroughly intertwingled with European history: the Jewish diaspora were only the diaspora after they were kicked out of Israel by the Romans (in something like 70AD), and even then, only after they maintained their identity in the diaspora (c.f. the majority of other conquered peoples who did not maintain an independent identity) Before that they were just the Jews, which was more of a nationality than anything else (a nationality that had a covenant with their God, but many nationalities at that time had such). "Sephardic Jew" is a term most used to describe Jews who were kicked out of the Iberian peninsula during the Spanish Inquisition and Reconquista. The Iberian peninsula had had a thorough conquering by Muslims until the euro-christian reconquering, the Reconquista, wherein the last of the Muslims were kicked out, and then the Jews too for good measure, which kicking out occurred at exactly the same time that Columbus sailed for the East (by going west). Other diaspora Jews lived in Muslim lands and are known as Mizrahi Jews (Mizrahi being some form of the word for Egypt which is also the word for East iirc) Was there some distinction (theological or genetic) between Miszrahi Jews and Sephardic Jews and Ashkenazi Jews before they were driven out of Spain? And Columbus was born in Genoa (his house is still there) and so, was he one of these types of Jews or are the different typenames just what we call them today?

sabas_ge 2y ago
>his house is still there It's not really his house, but a reconstruction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus_House https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Columbus_House
ywvcbk 2y ago
> out occurred at exactly the same time that Columbus sailed for the East (by going west). Which is notable why exactly? Surely both Columbus and his investors were hoping to return. Who would give all that money to a descendant of Jewish converts let alone someone who might have been affected by the expulsion decree directly? Columbus might have had Jewish ancestors a few generations back but I don’t think we can conclude anything else based on these findings. Especially not that he or his parents were actually practicing Jews.
p3rls 2y ago

bbor 2y ago

...I'm a little suspicious. Spain, Portugal, and Italy have been fighting fiercely to claim cultural credit for Columbus for my whole life (hundreds of years, even?) and some of the quotes in this article display some bias on the sides of the researchers. It's possibly a result of me using Firefox autotranslate out of laziness, but: The theory of the Colombo Cristóforo, born in Genoa, raised in Genoa, educated in Genoa, is false because all the very important historians of Italy have written black on white that it is impossible for this our Colombo to be Jewish. There is a total incompatibility... But then, between 10,000 and 15,000 [Jewish people lived in] the Italian peninsula [at the time]. Obviously it's an interesting point, but the certainty of the first statement set off alarm bells for me. Especially because they're placing his origin in Aragon, specifically; the Spanish are very nationalist, but the Catalonians are even more nationalist as a way to fight back. Very, very far from damning, but certainly makes these surprising claims a little suspicious. In terms of critical commentary, seemingly there is some: https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cristobal-colon-pudo-ser-un-judio-de-valencia-o-no.html https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cri... It's pointed out that although the professor that did this DNA study is indeed an academic[1] specializing in the relevant field--which cannot be said of the main proponent, who appears to be a super biased enthusiast [2][3][4]--he hasn't actually published any of these findings yet, instead choosing to announce them via his own "thriller" TV show. Right off the bat, that's the absolute opposite of what a typical scientist would do with absurdly controversial findings -- and apparently this is the same pattern he's followed since 2005 on this topic, publishing no data of any kind in actual journals, just "announcing" various findings. He does say "The scientific results, he says, will be presented at a press conference probably at the end of November", but... that's sus af, as the kids say. Beyond that, the DNA analysis itself seems to be in doubt: After the 2003 exhumation, no DNA could be extracted from the bones, Bottle says. The anthropologist says he stopped collaborating with the research team after those first analyses and has not wanted to participate anymore. Carracedo recalls that the DNA that came to him was tremendously degraded and later disassociated from the project. He says he won't give his opinion on Lorente's new results until there is a serious scientific study published in a specialized journal. The most damning evidence is non-circumstancial/character-based, of course, and it's what originally had me scratching my head in doubt: In any case, possessing a gene, haplogroup, or haplotype associated with Jewish or Sephardic ancestry does not challenge the historical sources that support Columbus' birthplace in Genoa. Furthermore, it provides no information about the religious beliefs held by Columbus' close relatives (parents, grandparents, etc.), the researcher emphasizes... there is no Y chromosome that can be defined exclusively as Jewish-sephary, Chambers argues. Even if the total DNA of an individual was recovered, it would still be impossible to reach definitive conclusions about its exact geographical origin. In other words: that's not really how genetics works... Thanks for sharing OP, this was a fascinating little dive. I, for one, will stick with the consensus view that this idiotic monster of a person was from Italy, until this researcher publishes some peer-reviewed results! [1] https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uZXz5-sAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=uZXz5-sAAAAJ... [2] He hasn't published basically anything: https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=14621439200 https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=1462143920... [3] Here's some of his (English!) writing, which IMO speaks for itself: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364304815_COLUMBUS_WAS_A_SEPHARDIC_JEW https://www.researchgate.net/publication/364304815_COLUMBUS_... [4] ...and this book title gives away the game, which is probably why it isn't mentioned in the linked article: https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-catalanitat-de-colom/9788494135200/2178634 https://www.casadellibro.com/libro-la-catalanitat-de-colom/9...

jorgemendes 2y ago

Well, just the best fit for being presented in the Spanish national day but, it's more complicated than that...of course. What was presented was not science. https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cristobal-colon-pudo-ser-un-judio-de-valencia-o-no.html https://elpais.com/ciencia/2024-10-12/el-show-del-adn-de-cri...

profsummergig 2y ago

> “The DNA indicates that Christopher Columbus’s origin lay in the western Mediterranean,” said the researcher. “If there weren’t Jews in Genoa in the 15th century, the likelihood that he was from there is minimal. Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula, which makes things very tenuous.” Does anyone else think that this is a poorly argued piece? Being Jewish, and having some Jewish DNA: are they the same thing? Is it not possible that many many people in Genoa could have had Jewish ancestors? After all, most of Jesus's disciples were Jewish (please correct me if I'm wrong).

dumbo-octopus 2y ago
All of Jesus’s original disciples were Jewish. And you can be certainly be Jewish without having Jewish DNA, but there’s some controversy as to whether the reverse is true.
- MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
  David Cross has a funny [bit][1] about whether the reverse is true. [1]: https://youtu.be/z09So1j4kpk?t=378 https://youtu.be/z09So1j4kpk?t=378
  - Bulb7187 2y ago
    Is he not aware of the concept of ethnicity? Native Americans, Romani, Assyrians, Armenians, Kurds, and Sikhs tie religion and ethnicity.
    - MathMonkeyMan 2y ago
      His is a very American perspective. Also, a comedian spinning his experience into material.
  - rafram 2y ago
    I like his work, but his bits on religion and Jewish identity in particular really miss the mark. He comes off as quite ignorant.

JoeAltmaier 2y ago

Oops. There go the big Columbus Day celebrations, sponsored by Italian-American societies.

toyg 2y ago
The fact that he was Italian and Catholic is beyond dispute. The possibility that he might have had some Jewish blood, doesn't really change anything except for the most tribal-inclined people (who typically make for terrible historians anyway). Hell, the Mediterranean had been a big melting pot for almost 2000 years at that point, practically anyone would have had some Jewish blood, some Greek blood, some Italian blood, some Spanish blood, some North-African blood...

chipdart 2y ago

From the article: > “Unfortunately, from a scientific point of view, we can’t really evaluate what was in the documentary because they offered no data from the analysis whatsoever,” Antonio Alonso, a geneticist and former director of Spain’s National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences told El País. So, baseless speculation used by the Spanish regime to claim Christopher Columbus as Spanish during the Spanish national day? The funny part is that none of this matters for things other than nationalist talking points.

juunpp 2y ago
How does a Jew discovering the Americas benefit the Spanish regime when the Spanish Catholic monarchy precisely kicked all Jews and Muslims from the peninsula with their ill-named "reconquista"? If this turns out to be true, then it'd be rather embarrassing. Presumably this Lorente has more evidence he hasn't put on display, so it isn't completely baseless either. It's certainly sketchy and not very scientific, though, per the same criticism outlined in the article. I also don't understand why people get a boner with Columbus. It is since the Greeks that people knew the world was not flat, and the vikings (presumably Leif Erikson) landed in Canada much earlier after a quick hop from Greeland. The only questions left at that point were: how big is that land over there, and can you get to India traveling West? It's all good and stuff, but not mind-blowing to me.
- shsbdksn 2y ago
  Ill named?
  - juunpp 2y ago
    Ill-named because it wasn't a reconquest of anything; Spain did not exist as a nation anytime prior to that. It was a bunch of tribes originally, followed by the Greeks settling in, then the Romans, then the Visigoths, and then the Arabs. A mesh of many cultures until the main kingdoms united and wiped the land of "non-Christian blood". And thereafter the Spanish government has gone back and forth trying to wipe the remaining cultures in the peninsula to impose its own, as can be learned from the recent history of the past century. Nothing to be proud of, really. I actually hope Columbus turns out to be Jew so they stop talking about him.

gnabgib 2y ago

Discussion (50 points, 22 hours ago, 46 conments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939

pimlottc 2y ago
The previous discussion was from before the full tests results were released.
- gnabgib 2y ago
  This article is also from before the release of any test results: “Normally, you send your article to a scientific journal,” he told El País. “An editor is then assigned to the piece and at least three independent reviewers examine the work and decide whether it’s scientifically valid or not. If it is, it gets published and so the rest of the scientific community can say whether they agree with it or not.

gnabgib 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago
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woodpanel 2y ago

> Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula Wait, so the name „ghetto“ wasn’t contrived there? Snark aside, is there any proof or qualification delivered with that quite important yet ambiguous side node, that there supposedly wasn’t any significant jewish presence in Italy?

adastra22 2y ago
Depends on how you define a “big population,” no? Prior to 1492 a lot of Jews had been driven out of Italy, and the remaining communities were quite small. Italian city states took in a lot of Jewish refugees from Spain after the 1492 expulsion. The first ghetto was in 1516. But that doesn’t line up with Columbus’ chronology.

playingalong 2y ago

> acknowledged that he had not been able to pinpoint Columbus’s place of birth Nit pick. I don't know it for sure, but if he was able to meet a king and a queen eventually, I assume he came from a wealthy family. For wealthy families at that time, it wouldn't be an issue to travel. Especially if you turn out to be the most known traveler in human's history. Thus, I fail to see how come we can even think of establishing the place of birth based on DNA. A likely area where his family came from - sure. But POB?

77pt77 2y ago

He was probably a portuguese jew or nobleman. This place is a a good hint: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba,_Portugal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba,_Portugal A place called Cuba in Portugal that predates the arrival to the new world by centuries. These ideas have been floating around for a long time: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/01/19/dna-testing-of-skeleton-may-prove-christopher-columbus-was-really-portuguese/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kristinakillgrove/2018/01/19/dn...

cjbenedikt 2y ago

[flagged]

cjbenedikt 2y ago

Unpublished, not peer reviewed. Some skeptik academics.

gizajob 2y ago

a.k.a an Italian

deleted 2y ago
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beardyw 2y ago

The thing is that as our number of ancestors expands going back, the gene pool gets ever smaller. Historically we are all related in the end.

tdeck 2y ago

Just wanted to drop the fact that there seems to be a historical consensus that isn't represented in these comments https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher_Columbus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher...

toyg 2y ago
> The evidence of Columbus's origins in Genoa is overwhelming: almost no other figure of his class or designation has left so clear a paper trail in the archives.

dang 2y ago

Recent and related: DNA study confirms Christopher Columbus’s remains are entombed in Seville - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41821939 - Oct 2024 (66 comments)

egberts 2y ago

Interesting that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree to kick the Jews out ot Spain shortly after Christopher Columbus, a Sephardic Jew, reached the Americas. This was even after the Jews heavily funded the Spaniard military in the conquest of Gibraltar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree

nudpiedo 2y ago
The purpose was to convert most of population to christianity to achieve cultural unity, and the ones who wouldn't convert had to leave. Usually it is explained only as an expulsion of the jews. P.D: there are many theories around Gibraltar, specially since it was during succession war and the country was in a civil war.
- dullcrisp 2y ago
  I think it would have been more polite if they all converted to Judaism is cultural unity was the goal.
susidhfjcbd 2y ago
> This was even after the Jews heavily funded the Spaniard military in the conquest of Gibraltar. To be fair, it was also after they aided the initial Muslim conquest of Spain and assisted the new Muslim rulers in subjugating the native Christian population.
slightwinder 2y ago
Your history seems wrong. The Alhambra Decree was issued on 31 March 1492. Columbus sealed his deal in April 1492, and started the first(!) expedition on 3 August 1492. And it seems he only reached the continent of America itself on his fourth expedition.

transfire 2y ago

Oh brother. I’m sure most of the European world has some Jewish descendants somewhere in there blood line. Hell, even Hilter did! Why is that a big deal? As if having some Jewish descendant makes everything you ever did a Jewish accomplishment.

woodruffw 2y ago
I don’t think anyone besides a few Spanish and Italian ultranationalists are interested in claiming Columbus’s “accomplishments.” Any evidence of Columbus being Jewish is mostly interesting for anthropological and historical reasons, not chest-beating ones.

chucke 2y ago

Spain still working on the national identity while not reconciling that its two most famous sailors were a portuguese and a genovese. You can see it in claims like these or the internal reframing of the magellan voyage as the "magellan-elcano expedition ".

franciscop 2y ago
OTOH there's well known and documented anti-Spanish propaganda during the centuries by basically the rest of Europe (Protestants specifically), so I start to doubt claims from both sides (disclaimer: I'm Spaniard): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_legend
- shsbdksn 2y ago
  The English and Elizabeth projected their crimes onto Spain. Proof is in the pudding where is the percentage of natives highest? Where Spaniards colonized (Mexico, Bolivia, Peru)? Or the Brits (Virginia, Connecticut, all of Canada except Quebec)? (Disclaimer, I'm... I don't know what I am)
  - ywvcbk 2y ago
    Presumably the population density in Mexico, Bolivia and Peru was much higher. Also Spanish emigration into their colonies was quite low and they were much spread out. e.g. more English/British people emigrated to the Americas in the 1600s than Spanish despite the fact that they controlled many times less territory.
    - hecrogon 2y ago
      Spanish empire caused a huge impact in the American continent but even so, the focus on seizing wealth and lands competed with the fact that the Spanish doctrine wanted to extend the Christendom. However anglo-saxos have established a more clear separation between colonizers and native population. I would compare what you mention about Mexico and Bolivia with how the decline of the native population in California accelerated after the independence of Mexico. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Native_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_of_Native_Californi...

phendrenad2 2y ago

Someday people will be having debates about the ethnicity of every prominent person in the current era. That's a depressing thought.

eddiewithzato 2y ago
Nah the new wave of ancient DNA analysis since 2010 has been a game changer. Especially with euroasian history. It showed us how populations migrated and how and when admixture formed. Including identifying the yamnaya admixture in modern populations If they actually have Columbus’s DNA intact with a good SNP resolution, it will be trivial to find out what % of jewish he is in his autosomal DNA. They can and should release it publicly as part of their paper as well. So people can confirm their hypothesis
- Tor3 2y ago
  .. except that there isn't really a thing such as Jewish DNA. Other than that, yes we're mostly all a mixture of people travelling and migrating and settling down and moving, and they came from all over over the centuries and millennia.
  - eddiewithzato 2y ago
    Y-DNA clades can and are associated with certain ethnic groups. Then once you confirm that, you simply need to model their autosomal DNA. And viola, you can very reliably determine if someone is Jewish, Greek, Italian, etc
    - Tor3 2y ago
      There's no way it's as easy and clear-cut as that. Nothing I've seen says it is. Citation needed.

tracer4201 2y ago

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temptemptemp111 2y ago

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amirhirsch 2y ago

Another indication that Columbus was part of the Jewish community is that the Jewish financiers Luis de Santángel and Gabriel Sánchez advanced interest-free loans to finance the journey.

toyg 2y ago
That's actually a point against: Jewish financiers would have expected interest, surely. It's Catholic ones who had to loan without interest.
- amirhirsch 2y ago
  You are not logic-ing correctly. The financiers were Jewish. Jews do not charge interest to other Jews; if Columbus were not Jewish they would have charged interest. This is written in Deuteronomy 23:20-21 as well as Leviticus and Exodus and also discussed by Maimonides
  - HKH2 2y ago
    > Jews do not charge interest to other Jews Even now?
    - qingcharles 2y ago
      Yes. Similarly with Muslims too. It makes getting financing for things that need loans (e.g. houses) trickier and sometimes open to exploitation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riba
      - 6stringronin 2y ago
        Except Islam dictates not taking interest from anyone, even though institutions try some not so clever work a rounds that end up being interest rebranded.
    - amirhirsch 2y ago
      Yes. There are many Jewish lending organizations designed around the principle that loaning money to establish a new business is the highest form of charity (see Maimonides 8 levels of giving). For example, there is a 127-year-old organization based in San Francisco that offers loans up to $50,000. The expectation is once someone establishes themselves they will contribute back to the lending organization. The workaround to halachic rules of interest that is applied in Israeli banking is equity co-ownership where the lender is paid back for their ownership shares at an established interest rate; the term for this is called “heter iska.”

renegade-otter 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago
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zxcvbnm69 2y ago

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zimmen 2y ago

This certainly smells like a History Channel "documentary" to me! Right up there with Ancient Aliens and the like. - Analysis that is not shared to review - Data that is not shared for review - Broad assumptions that are quickly narrowed down to "facts" - There is "more evidence but we can't show you because.... reasons"

namaria 2y ago
Besides the idea that DNA can show from 500 years away that a person came from one or another side of a modern border is just not understanding how any of this works.
juunpp 2y ago
And the fact that this pseudo-science was broadcasted on national television is a disgrace for Spain and embarrassing for the Spaniards quoted in the article who are trying to do actual science.

aurelien 2y ago

This is stupid and here is why, you are Jewish from the blood of your mother, or his mother is Corsican. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Fontanarossa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susanna_Fontanarossa

InDubioProRubio 2y ago

Smells very much of the villains of history anti-semitic narratives of the left in the past.

slv77 2y ago

Spanish scholars have speculated that Columbus was a crypto-Jew. The DNA analysis could have potentially ruled out that theory. https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewish/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/opinion/garcia-columbus-jewis...

cultofmetatron 2y ago
[flagged]
- day2punk 2y ago
  hahaha what good joke

qwery 2y ago

The "subtitle" / honest headline sums it up so well, I'm not sure what all the text below it is for: > Claim raises idea [...] but experts view it with caution

istultus 2y ago

Makes sense. Now that the Graun's chief enemy is Israel and Colonialism, why not combine two favored targets into one hateful guy? I'm also pretty sure he was cis-gendered.

myth_drannon 2y ago
yes, I was just seeing some initial whisper that Columbus was a Zionist and jews to blame for the slave trade and genocide of Americas natives.
throwpoaster 2y ago
What's "Graun" -- wikipedia says a composer. What's the connection? I like the sound of the word.
- eo3x0 2y ago
  It’s a nickname of the Guardian https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graun https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graun
  - throwpoaster 2y ago
    TIL

rlewkov 2y ago

And then again he may not have been Spanish and Jewish.

slightwinder 2y ago

Why are people so obsessed with the ethnic of a slightly relevant guy from 500 years ago? Is there some relevance in this?

wpasc 2y ago
Agreed that his ethnicity is a silly topic to be discussed, but calling Christopher Columbus a "slightly" relevant guy definitely feels like a stretch.
- the_gorilla 2y ago
  Apparently discovering new islands isn't what it used to be.
- slightwinder 2y ago
  He was a small gear in a long chain of events. If not Columbus, someone else would likely have found the New World. It was the age of (Europeans) Discovery after all, where many people were sailing the world and finding new routes and lands.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    This same logic applies to every discovery in all of human history.
    - Thiez 2y ago
      Sure. This is just Great Man theory [1] in action. It's a bit absurd, once you know about it you see it everywhere. It's especially distasteful when it's about people who 'discovered' places, because the next step was usually the subjugation or genocide of the people already living in the discovered place. But we still celebrate the explorers as heroes. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_man_theory
  - cafard 2y ago
    Indeed. Next thing somebody will be making a fuss about Isaac Newton.

throw4847285 2y ago

I'm extremely skeptical. A family member studied Columbus's diaries back in grad school and has long suspected he was a Converso, but this is clearly the worst kind of sensationalist journalism. And we already know for a fact that other members of the expedition were Conversos and they were partially motivated by their desire to get out from under the thumb of the Spanish Crown. Academics have long examined the confluence of the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain and the Columbian Exchange, and Columbus's heritage doesn't really change any of it.