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Recent DNA analysis of Christopher Columbus reveals what has long been suspected, that the “Italian” explorer was in fact a Spanish Sephardic Jew.
As we all learned in school: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
As every student of Jewish history also knows, in 1492 the Jews of Spain were finally forced to choose between conversion and exile, upon pain of death, having been subjected to massacres and persecution since the pogroms that began in 1391.
One third of Spain’s large and once thriving Jewish population perished or fled, while a third converted, and only a final third survived as openly professing Jews.
Of the many Sephardic Jews who chose conversion – called New Christians, Conversos, or the insulting Marranos (pigs) – some sincerely renounced Judaism to survive, while others embraced Catholicism in public but continued to practice their faith in secret, at much risk to themselves.
Following Kind Ferdinand and Queen Isabella’s expulsion edict of 1492, more than 200,000 Jews fled Spain, many leaving for Portugal, which provided safe haven for only a few years Others sought refuge in more welcoming Ottoman lands such as modern-day Turkey, and many eventually settled in European cities such as Amsterdam.
Many more settled in North Africa, particularly Morocco, where Jewish life flourished. Our closing night film, “Seven Blessings” celebrates this vibrant Moroccan Jewish heritage.
Many brave, desperate souls decided to face the perils of ocean voyage to join the exploration of the New World, eventually settling in the Americas and heavily populating the Caribbean. (The improbably titled but highly accurate 2009 book “Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom–and Revenge” recounts this fascinating history.)
The Alhambra Decree, also called the Edict of Expulsion, gave Jews in Spain until the end of July to either convert to Catholicism or leave the country. Columbus set sail from the Spanish port of Palos on August 3. Columbus’s original sailing date was August 2, which coincided with Tisha B’Av. However, he postponed his voyage by one day to avoid setting sail on what Jews consider an unlucky day.
The expedition was funded by two Jewish Conversos and another prominent Jew, and at least five Jews are known to have been aboard that fateful voyage, including his translator, navigator, doctor, surgeon and astronomer.
The Alhambra Decree, which was only officially overturned in 1968 at the Second Vatican Council, was but one of the many traumatic events Sephardic Jews have suffered, including the Crusades and the Inquisition.
Although the Inquisition formally ended in 1834, the papal Inquisition that continued to bring tragedy to Sephardic Jews is at the heart of “Kidnapped: The Abduction of Edgardo Mortara,” a true story that begins in 1851 Bologna.
In another forced exodus, Sephardic Jews who had been living in the Middle East for hundreds of years, sometimes called Mizrahi Jews, were expelled or fled following the establishment of the state of Israel – the subject of “The Blond Boy from the Casbah,” set in Algiers. An estimated 900,000 Jews, 99% of the Jewish population, were forced out of Arab lands and Iran during this mass expulsion.
The geographical division between the Sephardim (the word comes from the Hebrew Sefarad, which means Spain) and the Ashkenazi dates back to a much earlier tragedy, the conquest of Jerusalem in 586 BCE by King Nebuchadnezzar, who carried most of its inhabitants into exile “by the rivers of Babylon.”
The Jews who remained in and around Palestine gradually reclaimed their homeland and later, under Roman persecution, they moved westward into Europe, settling in what was to become France, Germany, Poland and Russia. These Northern Jews came to be known as Ashkenazim.
By the 9th century, many of the Southern Jews had settled in the Iberian Peninsula, where they developed a rich literary, artistic, scientific, religious and cultural tradition spanning four centuries. Famous Sephardic Jews include Spinoza and Maimonides.
Until recent times, Sephardic Jews vastly outnumbered the Ashkenazim, and the oldest synagogues in America were all built by Sephardic Jews, who played a central role in Colonial America.
Today, only 20% of Jews worldwide identify as Sephardic, with most living in Israel, where they make up 40% of the population.
Ladino, a Sephardic romance language, is a mixture of Hebrew and Iberian languages that is almost extinct today. The language has been kept alive by a handful of singers who continue to perform and record beautiful Ladino songs.
Sephardic food is influenced by Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cuisine, and during Passover rice, corn and legumes are allowed.
Although Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jewish beliefs and ritual life are almost identical, there are differences in the chanting melodies used while reading the Torah, and in the pronunciation of some Hebrew words. Sephardic services often include different poetry, songs and psalms, and the Torah scroll is kept in a wooden case called a tikim.
Today, many Ashkenazi Jews in Europe and America know little of the illustrious Sephardic people who once populated much of the world or of the traumatic history of these distinguished communities.
The Boulder Jewish Film Festival provides audiences with an opportunity to learn more about the rich culture and history of the Sephardim through award-winning feature films from France, Israel and Italy. These three films reveal the vibrant diversity of the Jewish experience, which the festival always strives to showcase.
