I don't know enough to judge, but this is the exact Spain that in the exact same year was responsible for the Inquisition.
What did Columbus think of the Inquisition?
Is it possible to really know?
http://www.aish.com/jl/h/48951681.htmlCHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS
The day after the expulsion, August 3, 1492, Christopher Columbus left on his famed voyage of discovery. His diary begins:
"In the same month in which their Majesties issued the edit that all Jews should be driven out of the kingdom and its territories, in the same month, they gave me the order to undertake with sufficient men my expedition of discovery of the Indies."
Many people like to speculate that Columbus was of Jewish ancestry, and there is a good case for it. (For those interested, there are a lot of fascinating tidbits about Columbus collected in a book called Christopher Columbus's Jewish Connection by Jane Francis Amler.) (2) Here are some examples:
Although he was born in Genoa, Italy, his first language was Castilian Spanish. Many Jews had been forced to leave Castile about hundred years before his birth and some went to Genoa. (Incidentally, 14th century Castilian Spanish is the "Yiddish" of Spanish Jewry known as "Ladino.")
When he wrote, Columbus made funny little marks on the page that resembled the markings that religious Jews put on top of the written page even to this day - an abbreviation of besiyata d'ishmaya, which means "with God's help" in Aramaic.
He talked a great deal about Zion in his writings.
In his crew, he had five known Jews, including his doctor, navigator, and translator.
Columbus hired the translator, Louis de Torres, (who had converted to Christianity the day before he set sail) because he spoke twelve languages including Hebrew. And Columbus was sure he was not going to bump into Hebrew-speakers. He thought he was going to go to the Far East and he expected to find at least one of the ten lost tribes there and needed a Hebrew speaker.
Furthermore, there's no question that Columbus's voyage to America was spiritually linked to the expulsion. Just as one of the greatest Jewish communities of Medieval Europe is being destroyed, God was opening up the doors of what is going to eventually become the greatest Diaspora refuge for Jews in history -- America. This is another tremendous pattern we see in history: God making the cure before the disease.
Incidentally, Columbus's voyage was not financed by Isabella selling her jewels as is often stated. The major financiers were two court officials - both Jewish converses - Louis de Santangel, chancellor of the royal household, and Gabriel Sanchez, treasurer of Aragon.
The first letter Columbus sent back from the New World was not to Ferdinand and Isabella, but to Santangel and Sanchez thanking them for their support and telling them what he found.
The voyage of Columbus is a landmark in the Age of Exploration when numerous discoverers opened up the New World. While no other is believed to be Jewish, their discoveries were, to a significant extent, made possible by Jewish inventions or Jewish improvements to existing inventions.
For example, the key tools of navigators -- the quadrant and the astral lobe used during this period- were of Jewish manufacture. In fact, the type of quadrant then in use was called "Jacob's Staff"; it had been invented by Rabbi Levi ben Gershon also known as Gershonides.
The famous atlas that Columbus and the other explorers used was known as the Catalon Atlas. It was the creation of the Cresca Family, Jews from Majorca, Spain. Not only was the Catalon Atlas considered the greatest and most significant collection of maps at the time, it had no competition to speak of. Jews had a virtual monopoly at map making then, culling information from Jewish merchants from all over the known world.
Topic: I am tired of hearing people complaining about Columbus Day. I don't mean you (Read 2509 times)