Was Christopher Columbus Jewish?

Debunking the Myth

There has long been claims that Christopher Columbus was of jewish origin (1) and one of its more famous proponents over the years has been none other than Simon Wiesenthal. Who claims on the flyleaf of his 1989 'Justice, not Vengeance' to be trying to prove that Columbus was jewish. (2) Wiesenthal of course is not first to attempt to argue this, but he is probably the most famous.

Interestingly the idea that Columbus was something other than a Genoese gentile is a rather late creation stemming from the eighteenth and nineteenth century. (3) The commonest claims are that Columbus was Spanish and/or jewish, but others are many and varied with a good example of this sort being the 1991 claim that he was a Norwegian prince.

These claims were all made, of course, when Columbus was seen as a major world figure who contributed much of value to mankind. This is sadly not usually the case today as he is seen rather unjustly as the destroyer of the 'native' culture of the Americas and the perpetrator of genocide.

Naturally some in the anti-jewish camp have been quick to get on the left-wing anti-Columbus bandwagon and have proclaimed Columbus to have been a jew and responsible for genocide etc ad nauseam. (4)

Somewhat predictably there is little attempt to examine the literature and no apparent interest in examining the sources of the claims that Columbus was jewish. Instead, we are told that Columbus was a jew, because jews say he was. That is rather like saying Karl Marx was a Protestant Christian not a jew, because jewish academics like Jacob Kovalio claim that he was. (5)

In order to examine the claim that Columbus was jewish; let us simply examine the facts.

In the first instance it is helpful to remember that 'Christopher Columbus' is simply an anglicized version of the name of the Genoese man named Cristoforo Colombo. (6)

Columbus' father was one Domenico Colombo. (7) Domenico had been born in the village of Quinto, five miles east of Genoa, in 1418. (8) He was born, along with his brother Antonio, to one Giovanni Colombo, a wool weaver/merchant by trade, who was originally from the rural village of Moconesi in Eastern Liguria. (9) There is no reason to even suspect that Giovanni Colombo was anything but an ambitious Ligurian peasant since, as Paolo Taviani correctly points out, (10) jews at this time only resided in cities and large towns in Italy.

We don't know who Giovanni's wife and Domenico's mother was, but we do know that Giovanni, his brother Luca and his father (Columbus' great-grandfather) were Catholics who were baptized at birth given that they owned land in their own name (which jews couldn't do) and they lived in rural areas (which jews very rarely did). (11)

Domenico, like his father, was an ambitious man of business (12) and was seconded to a fellow weaver in Genoa in an apprenticeship contract drawn up by the notary Quirico of Albenga in the Santo Stefano district of Genoa on 21st February 1429. (13) Naturally enough he followed this trade and become a wool weaver/merchant just like his father. (14) His brother Antonio likewise entered the wool trade and the brothers often collaborated in their business dealings. (15)

How providential Domenico's dealings were is dependent on whether one believes the identification of the keeper of the city gate of Genoa from 1447-1450/1451 with Columbus' father or not.

Fernandez-Armesto asserts that this is unlikely, because Columbus (an incorrigible social climber who oft claimed to be descended from a non-existent admiral) (16) never used or mentioned such a position that we know of. (17) Therefore he argues that Domenico was probably bankrupt by 1473, (18) but this is based on the supposition that the reason that Domenico was selling the land he acquired as part of the dowry of his wife Susanna was because he was badly in debt due to unwise business dealings.

This we cannot reasonably assert as we simply don't know why Domenico was selling the land. It may have been because he had financial difficulties, but it could also have very readily have been because he wanted to realize the liquid capital of the land to say invest in his business. This would make sense given that Domenico expanded his business at this time to include running a tavern in Savona. (19)

Taviani by contrast asserts that Domenico prospered in business based on the identification of Columbus' father was the keeper of the city gate of Genoa from 1447-1450/1451 (20) and Cummins adds the evidence that he was Master Weaver of Genoa in 1470. (21) This does rather suggest that Domenico prospered as does the fact that his sons Cristoforo and Bartolomeo were both accepted at the Spanish court in addition to the marriage of his daughter Bianchinetta to a leading Genoese cheese wright. (22)

In other words it is extremely unlikely that Domenico was a Marrano or a jew converted to Christianity, because he was part of the family politics of Genoa, owned land in his own name (like his father and grandfather before him) and not once in the fifty-four years’ worth of documentation (from 21st February 1429 to 27th January 1483) (23) do we find any reference, or reason to suspect, Domenico of being anything other than a Catholic Genoese wool weaver/merchant.

Turning to Columbus' mother, Susanna Fontanarossa, we note that she was the daughter of a wool weaver from a village in the valley of Bisagno. (24) We know little about her other than that her weaver father was called Jacopo. (25) Given their two Old Testament first names, as Taviani points out, (26) that if jewishness is to be located in Columbus' family tree then it would have to be on his mother's side based on the evidence (or rather lack of it).

That said the same fundamental objection to any suggestion of jewishness however applies in that Jacopo and Susanna Fontanarossa came from a rural village and owned land in their own names (which we know because Domenico later sold some of that land that was transferred to him as her marital dowry). This simply makes it very unlikely that Jacopo and Susanna could have been jewish.

It is also worth pointing out that the proponents of a jewish Columbus do not argue that the Fontanarossa family were jewish, but rather that the Colombo family were. As well as that references to his supposed jewishness only start two centuries after he died and his contemporaries never even mentioned any whisper or rumour to that effect.

In his encyclopaedic 'Christoper Columbus' Taviani explains that proponents of the 'Columbus was a jew' theory 'offer deductions, some interesting, others unconvincing, to support [their] thesis: but no proof.' (27)

In other words the idea that Columbus was anything other than what he himself always said he was, the son of a Genoese wool weaver/merchant, (28) is simply the figment of someone's rather lurid imagination.

References

(1) John Cummins, 1992, 'The Voyage of Christopher Columbus: Columbus' Own Journal of Discovery', 1st Edition, Weidenfeld and Nicolson: London, p. 19; more recently see https://www.timesofisrael.com/christopher-columbus-the-hidden-jew/ and historically see https://www.jta.org/1934/10/12/archive/christopher-columbus-a-jew-new-evidence-supports-theory

(2) Simon Wiesenthal, 1989, 'Justice, not Vengeance', 1st Edition, Weidenfeld and Nicolson: London

(3) Paolo Emilo Taviani, 1985, 'Christopher Columbus: The Grand Design', 3rd Edition, Orbis: London, p. 21

(4) http://renegadetribune.com/happy-zarco-day-columbus-jew/

(5) Cf. Jacob Kovalio, 2009, 'The Russian Protocols of Zion in Japan: Yudayaka/Jewish Peril Propaganda and Debates in the 1920s', 1st Edition, Peter Lang: New York, p. 32

(6) Michael Anthony, 1992, 'The Golden Quest: The Four Voyages of Christopher Columbus', 1st Edition, MacMillan: Basingstoke, p. 5

(7) Ibid.; Felipe Fernandez-Armesto, 1991, 'Columbus', 1st Edition, Oxford University Press: New York, p. 2

(8) Cummins, Op. Cit., p. 21; Taviani, Op. Cit., p. 20

(9) Ibid; Cummins, Op. Cit., p. 21

(10) Taviani, Op. Cit., p. 32

(11) Ibid, pp. 27; 32

(12) Ibid, p. 25

(13) Ibid, p. 23

(14) Ibid, p. 24; Anthony, Op. Cit., p. 5; Fernandez-Armesto, Op. Cit., p. 2

(15) Cummins, Op. Cit., p. 21

(16) Fernandez-Armesto, Op. Cit., p. 2

(17) Ibid, pp. 2-3

(18) Ibid, p. 2

(19) Ibid.; Taviani, Op. Cit., p. 24

(20) Ibid, pp. 24-26; also Cummins, Op. Cit., p. 21

(21) Ibid.

(22) Fernandez-Armesto, Op. Cit., p. 2

(23) Cf. Taviani, Op. Cit., p. 24

(24) Cummins, Op. Cit., p. 21; Fernandez-Armesto, Op. Cit., p. 2

(25) Taviani, Op. Cit., p. 32

(26) Ibid.

(27) Ibid, p. 29

(28) Cummins, Op. Cit., p. 20