How a 15th-century Jew was venerated as a Christian in late medieval Latin Europe!

History tells us that Jews in Europe (since the 7th-century BCE) have been persecuted, especially since early Christianity.  Medieval Catholic Europe was especially brutal for the Jews, in countries such as Spain, and Portugal.  Where they were subjected to Catholic intolerant of the Jewish faith, and scriptures, which were destroyed, or their pages censored, and their belonging confiscated by the crown.  It is no wonder that many Jews hid their identities, and faked being Christians.  Although, Jews in Catholic countries of Spain and Portugal were force to convert to Christianity, or face exile or worse.

One such person, known in Spanish, was Cristóbal Colón; in Italian: Cristoforo Colombo, however, in the English peaking world he is known as Christopher Columbus.  Until the mid-third decade of the 21st-century, he was presumed to be a Christian, with a Christian first and second family name Colón, which in Spanish means “Dove,” from the Latin colombus, colomba.  The name was favoured by early Christians due to the dove’s symbolism as the Holy Spirit.  However, the Dove symbol was originally Pagan, as the symbol of Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love.

Columbus was, in fact, a Sephardic Jew, also known as Sephardim, are a Jewish diaspora population associated with the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal).  They came into Europe via North Africa, as opposed to the Ashkenazi Jews, who originated from Central and Eastern Europe.

This is what the Catholic encyclopaedia says on Christopher Columbus (1451 – 1506), before the revelation that he was a Sephardic Jew: Columbus was also of a deeply religious nature.  Whatever influence scientific theories and the ambition for fame and wealth may have had over him; in advocating his enterprise, he never failed to insist on the conversion of the pagan peoples that he would discover as one of the primary objects of his undertaking.  Even when clouds had settled over his career, after his return as a prisoner from the lands he had discovered. He was ready to devote all his possessions and the remaining years of his life to set sail again for the purpose of rescuing Christ’s Sepulchre from the hands of the infidel.

Scholar for centuries have suggested that the explorer could have been Greek, Basque, Portuguese, or British.  While researchers were unable to pinpoint Columbus’s place of birth, they acknowledged after analysing 25 possible locations that he was likely to have come from the Spanish Mediterranean region.

So who was the first to discover the Americas, was it the Vikingr, Leif Eriksson in 11th-century, the Welsh Prince Madog in 1170, or was it the Sephardic Jew, Christopher Columbus in 1492, or Amerigo Vespucci in 1502.

 What do you say on part or all of the OP?

Jeanne, J.E., pp. Jero Jones.