The Italians can keep him, for his tarnished reputation, although the might prefer Marco Polo as an explorer who improved human understanding of each other.
For that quality, the Germans have Von Humboldt, the French have de Tocqueville going west and de Custine east, the Chinese have Zheng He, the Arabs Ibn Battuta. The British have a full roster of candidates, and at least two of the above cover sexual minorities.
The Jews should stick with Benjamin of Tudela.
Of course, there are several alleged burial sites of Columbus.
Sorry, but the Italian birth or nationality of Columbus is in doubt.
Note that there is even a claim that he was English.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_theories_of_Christopher_Columbus
Speaking as a Jew (but not for all Jews), I don’t find the evidence that he was one of convincing. This makes me glad. Even discarding more recent claims of lying to natives, stealing their land and possesions and genocide- we have a man who was wrong about his main claim (He thought the world was much smaller than it really is. He struck some unknown islands. If he had not, he and his crew would have starved to death at sea), who didn’t know where he was when he landed (He thought it was India) and refused to admit his error (He called the natives Indians. He insisted turkeys were peacocks etc).
I never understood the Italian American community holding him up as some great hero. If you are of Italian descent and want a hero, I say go with Leonardo DaVinci. He was an artist, a scientist and IMHO one of the finest minds humanity has ever produced,
Rare but not unknown. More prevalent in the Middle East than elsewhere, which should surprise no one. Really, it might be more accurate to describe it as a Semitic gene than a “Jewish” gene(s). There has always been some mixing of genes between people who live near/next to each other and the Jews have been in Europe, especially places like Italy, a couple thousand years which is more than enough time to sow wild oats widely.
Or someone in his family tree had an illicit affair with a local Jewish man…I mean, these things happen. Or someone was adopted into the family. Or rape that was concealed/explained away in some other manner. A few generations back, especially if the family was half decent at secret-keeping, and all knowledge of such a thing could be lost.
But unless we’re talking genetic inheritance, a whole messy can of worms, calling someone “Jewish” would imply their family and generally (back then) their religious upbringing were of the Hebraic persuasion.
If someone was raised Catholic and did not know otherwise, calling them Jewish because they (or their grandfather) may have been adopted or the result of a “pedigree error” has a bit of absurdity to it. (Brings to mind the Chapelle sketch of the blind black klansman).
The recent spate of “Columbus was Jewish” posts/articles were, indeed, prompted by genetic analysis. Columbus had “Jewish genes”, and it is true that there are certain genes/patterns of inheritance that are most commonly found among people of Jewish descent - so Columbus might in fact have been Jewish by descent.
Here’s a YouTube video I saw yesterday that I think is pretty good at explaining the situation:
I second this. I think it’s very unfortunate that when the Italians were looking for a national holiday, they got stuck with Columbus. So many more admirable Italians they could have picked. I, also, have suggested DaVinci.
FWIW, I don’t think actual Italians care overmuch.
The fetishization of Christopher Columbus is, AFAIK, primarily an Italian-American thing, a weird expression of the Italian-American assimilation experience.
My understanding is that sometime in the 19th century there was an attempt to de-emphasize the traditional American concept that we inherited from our English overlords that the ‘New World’ was discovered by Englishmen, or in the case of Cabot an Italian who was hired by England. So the Columbus story was moved to the forefront simply to say ‘nyah nyah nyah’ to our cousins across the pond about the history they defined.
It’s definitely a big Italian American thing. I don’t know when that started, but I think probably early 20th century as the number of Italian immigrants increased created Italian American sub-cultures here.
Sure.
Italian immigrants were, in the eyes of the current residents, Catholic swarthy south Europeans from a backward war-torn nation who spoke a weird Romance language. The immigrants found a hook to emphasize their Americanness: the whole country was discovered by one of our guys. That makes us super American, so you WASPs maybe could cut us some slack and hire us and allow us to move out of our ghettos and stop sneering at us.
It was a boss move, but at the expense of burying how objectively awful Columbus’ actions and priorities were for the established civilization of the places he “discovered”.
It sure is A year ago my town voted to rename “Columbus Day” “indigenous peoples Day”. This was, as best as i could tell, a completely meaningless ballot item, as it’s the state that sets state holidays. But signs pipped up all over town saying things like, “Italians are people too”.
New York City split the difference by rebranding it both as “Indigenous People’s Day” and “Italian Heritage Day.”
Fans of Chief Jay Strongbow enjoy a double celebration that way.
When in doubt, rename things, as the people of Leningrad would say.
I find this claim so odd given the names of family members.
GGF Lucas Columbo. “Luke” in English. Famous Gospel writer.
GF Giovanni Columbo . “John” in English. Famous Gospel writer, a famous apostle and alledged epistle writer, a famous Revelation writer, also a famous baptizer.
F Domenico Columbo. “Of the Lord” in English.
FInlaw Bartolomeu Perestrello. Famous disciple.
Christopher. Literally “bearing Christ”. .
Son Diego Colón. Origin disputed but from Santiago, “St. Jacob”, is popular. His kids were María (“Mary”), Luis, Cristóbal (Sp. “Chistopher”), Juana (Fem. Sp. “John”) and Isabel. Note esp. “Maria”.
Son Fernando Colón. Same name as father’s patron, a famous “Catholic King”. See also “Isabel” above.
In addition, 3 of his 5 siblings were named Giovanni, Bartolomeu and Diego as well.
Note that the family name (while likely not going back far) means “Dove” which was a Christian symbol for Jesus.
Even converso’s wouldn’t use such names unless they were really into Christianity.
It’s not so odd if you remember that “Jewish” is both a religion and an ethnicity. It is entirely possible that Columbus came from a family of sincere Christian converts and was a practicing Catholic all his life while knowing that he had Jewish ancestors in the family tree. Do I know that for a fact? No, but it is certainly a possibility.
For example: St. Joseph of Anchieta was a Catholic saint descended from Jews. Being of converso lineage meant he was of Jewish descent but still no less a Christian.
Actually being Jewish, or ethnically Jewish, is one thing, but having Jewish ancestors in one’s family tree in no wise makes someone ethnically Jewish, especially if one is a practicing Catholic in a Catholic environment.
Not to mention Iron Eyes Cody (aka Espera Oscar de Corti).
By the rules of Judaism, it would be a sin NOT to eat the unkosher food to save your life. It’s called Pikuach Nefesh and it’s basically a rule that says that you always save a life, overriding any other commandment, with a handful of exceptions.