Other items in today’s column include:
*JED talks
* Recommended reading and viewing
* In memoriam
SAN DIEGO — Here is a 2018 story that appeared in The Times of Israel speculating that Christopher Columbus might have been a hidden Jew, forced to conceal his true identity because the year that he set sail on the voyage in which he would discover America–1492–was the same year that Jews were given a brutal choice by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain: Either convert to Christianity or be expelled from the country. The story was one in a long litany of stories speculating on Columbus’ true ancestry, long believed and disputed as Italian. How proud the Jews would have been to be able to claim the European explorer who “discovered” America.
However, another stream of research indicated that Columbus brutalized and enslaved indigenous people with whom he came into contact, and his voyages were responsible for the spread of diseases that those people had never before encountered. Here is a story from the History Channel that outlines this controversy. Oy, so under those circumstances would Jews want to claim him as one of their own? No thanks, say many, we’ve got enough tsuris of our own.
So, it is with mixed feelings that I watched reports of a Columbus statue being beheaded in Boston, and closer to home, when I read an article by Ken Stone in Times of San Diego that the City of Chula Vista quietly removed an 8-foot, 1,200 statue of Columbus from its Discovery Park “out of public safety concerns.” The statue had been standing there since 1991, viewed with pride by some Italians, and with loathing by some indigenous peoples of our southwestern corner of the continental United States, who saw in Columbus the forerunner of a genocide against their peoples, one which in their view compared with the Holocaust suffered by the Jews.
It was just 50 years after Columbus came to the Western Hemisphere, that Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo, a Spaniard long thought to be Portuguese, “discovered” San Diego, although he named it “San Miguel.” As he died on that voyage, and the navigational reports in his log books were said to be inaccurate, another Spanish explorer, Sebastian Vizcaino, arrived here in 1602 and called this place San Diego. Both men had followed the Catholic custom of naming places after saints whose feast days fell on or near the day of discovery.
Just as some people suspected that Columbus might have been Jewish, so too have some scholars similarly suspected that Cabrillo may have come from a Jewish family that was forced to convert during the Spanish Inquisition. If so, in these days of reexamining history, this will not be particularly great news for the Jews. The 1542 discoverer of our bay didn’t stay long enough to do anything but skirmish with the local Kumeyaay Indians, to whom he also gave presents. But his record as a crossbowman for the Conquistador Hernan Cortes and as a shipbuilder who helped enable Cortes’ successful invasion of the Aztec capital (today’s Mexico City), which then was surrounded by a lake, doesn’t make his memory a cherished one among indigenous peoples.
History is history, so if either Columbus or Cabrillo are someday proven to have had Jewish roots, we’ll have to accept those facts. But I sincerely doubt that in either instance we would be celebrating.
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JED Talks
Rabbi /Cantor Cheri Weiss of the San Diego Outreach Synagogue writes, “Everyone has a story to tell and an experience to share. Each month, we will hear from two of our members, who will share unique experiences and/or expertise that have brought them closer to their Judaism. Each presentation runs for 15-18 minutes plus 10 minute for questions.” Programming via Zoom will begin at 10:30 a.m., Sunday, July 12.
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Recommended reading and viewing
Carly Pildis, grassroots organizer for the Jewish Democratic Council of America (JDCA) has an op-ed piece in The Forward addressing the concern some Jews have over cooperating with Black Lives Matter, given that organization’s history of anti-Israel statements. Pildis also appears in a YouTube discussion among Black Jews about our community’s own history of racism.
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In memoriam
Broncha Concepcion Kligerman, mother of Ruthy Kligerman, died Friday, it was announced by Temple Beth Shalom’s president Arlene LaGary. Graveside funeral services will be conducted Sunday, June 14, at the Home of Peace Cemetery, 3668 Imperial Avenue.
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Donald H. Harrison is editor of San Diego Jewish World. He may be contacted via donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com Free obituaries in memory of members of the San Diego County Jewish community are sponsored on San Diego Jewish World by Inland Industries Group LP in memory of long-time San Diego Jewish community leader Marie (Mrs. Gabriel) Berg.