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Madrid (JTA) — In what
may be his last appearance
of the year, Christopher
Columbus is back. But this
time he's a full-fledged Jew.
It's true many people have
suspected it until now but if
Israeli shipping magnate
Elie Schalit has his way, the
closing act of Sepharad '92
— which commemorates the
500th anniversary of the ex-
pulsion of the Jews from
Spain — will give the final
and conclusive proof that the
elusive sailor really was a
member of the tribe.
"The discovery of America
has been presented as some-
thing completely non-
Jewish, and that's absolute-
ly ridiculous," Mr. Schalit
said on a recent visit to
Spain to finalize the details
of an exhibit on Columbus
the Jew, which will be
shown in Madrid from Dec.
16 until Jan. 15.
Two identical exhibits will
be taken to Tel Aviv for
Passover 1993 and to Miami
in the summer.
Mr. Schalit, who has spent
over $1 million of his own
funds on the project, corn-
missioned an in-depth study
of all documents which
might lead to a better under-
standing of the role of the
Jews in the discovery of the
New World.
He came up with a set of
facts that, separately, might
not say much but taken
together will at least add an
important dimension to the
discovery.
These are some of the fin-
dings which the exhibit will
feature:
• Navigation was tradi-
tionally a Jewish trade. One
hundred years before the
discovery of America,
Yaacov Corsino compiled, in
Hebrew, the first naviga-
tional tables in history,
which laid the foundations of
the trade. The originals are
kept in the national libraries
in Vienna.
Abraham Zacuto compiled
the navigational almanac.
Mr. Zacuto, who had ties to
the University of Salaman-
ca, went to Portugal at the
time of the expulsion and
apparently died in
Damascus. One of his major
contributions was the inven-
tion of the copper astrolabe.
• The key mapmakers
were all Jews. The most
famous, Abraham and
Yehuda Cresques, estab-
lished a school of car-
tography in Palma de
Mallorca.
• The first voyage was fi-
nanced for Queen Isabella by
Luis de Santangel — the
monarch's modern-day
equivalent of a finance min-
ister — and by Luis
(Azariah) Ginillo, whose
father was burned at the
stake in Zaragoza.
The second trip, which was
the largest with 17 ships,
was paid principally from
the proceeds of the sale of
property owned by the ex-
pelled Jews.
As far as Columbus was
concerned, Mr. Schalit has
this proof:
• In the Ufizzi Gallery in
Florence stands the only
portrait painted by an artist
who knew Columbus in real
life. "He looks like a
Salonika Jew," Mr. Schalit
said.
• Although some people
have argued that Columbus
was demonstrably Christian
because his surviving jour-
cf
1
c
Abraham Zacuto
compiled the
navigational
almanac.
nals are replete with invoca-
tions of the names of Christ,
Mary and the saints, this
may be proof that he actu-
ally was a Jew, since he
needed to conceal his true
identity.
"He had every reason to be
as Catholic as possible," said
Mr. Schalit.
• Columbus left for the
New World in time for the
deadline given to the last
Jews who chose not to con-
vert, and he began his
"report" to Santangel with a
reference to the expulsion.
• Mr. Schalit is not the
only believer of the Colum-
bus-is-a-Jew theory. Nazi-
hunter Simon Wiesenthal,
among others, in his book
The Sails of Hope suggests
that the sailor was out look-
ing for a place for the Jews to
resettle, since Morocco and
Turkey would be only tem-
porary havens.
• When the Franciscan
friars went to spy on Colum-
bus during his botched at-
tempt to administrate the
New World islands, he and
his brother are described by
the monks as behaving like
"Faraones" (Pharaohs), a
nickname for converted
Jews.
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