The Jews, Columbus and America

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Let me begin this article with Genesis 12:3. The LORD is speaking to the world when he said, “I will bless them that bless thee (the Jews).”

We have all heard the rhyme, “In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.” Was Christopher Columbus a Jew? And does America owe her existence to the Jewish people? Columbus may have been one of the (forced ones), a Jew pretending to have converted to Catholicism to avoid persecution. The Spanish people referred to them as “Marranos,” literally, “swine.”

Columbus had convinced the Spanish royalty that the purpose of his expedition was to search for a western sea route to Asia (India). But was his real purpose to search out a safe place for his persecuted Jewish friends? By the year 1492, the Jewish population had been hounded in virtually every part of the known world and were now weary and desperate for relief.

Another question is, “Was the expedition financed by a Morano Jew?” An entry in Luis de San Angel's account book dated May 5, 1492, recorded that “$1,500,000 maravedis, or $1,627,000 in today's money) was to be paid to Isaac Abraham for a loan to the Queen for Christopher Columbus, who goes in the expedition.”

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella had signed the Edict of Expulsion in 1492, demanding that Spain’s Jewish population convert to Catholicism or be expelled. Columbus’s departure coincided with the date on which Jews were supposed to be out of the country. It appears he delayed the expedition until the last moment to avoid sailing on the 9th of Av, a Jewish holy day commemorating the destruction of the temple in 70 A.D.

Columbus had written letters to his son, Diego. He followed an old Jewish custom of starting his letters with the Hebrew letters Beit-heh, an abbreviation for Baruch Hashem, “Blessed is the Name,” referring to Yahweh. This Hebrew notation appeared in all his letters but one. Also, it is well known that Columbus’s first mate, Luis de Torres of the Santa Maria, was a Marrano Jew.

Was Columbus a chosen vessel unto the LORD? We know the LORD has always kept a remnant of Jews for his purposes. His discovery prepared the way for the settlement of North America. The United States has been the most important and loyal ally the Jews have had in the past 2,000 years and has provided a secure sanctuary for millions of Jewish families.

American helped defeat Nazi Germany in 1945, opening the way for a Jewish homeland on May 14, 1948. This was a promise and a prophesy kept by the LORD to his people Israel. Is it any wonder why some American Jews, at the end of their annual Passover meal, add the phrase, “God bless Columbus.”
Your thoughts:

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[Replying to placebofactor in post #1]

More than two hundred years ago, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison fought for a separation of church and state, which in our own time allows us to worship our God in freedom.

Although Jews comprised a small part of the population of colonial America, the country’s Founding Fathers realized the importance of freedom of worship for even this small minority. George Washington’s 1790 letter to the Touro Synagogue in Rhode Island affirms the American commitment that bigotry would have no place in the US and that Jews would not be a tolerated minority but would “possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship.”