61–70 of 363 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Being Jewish, and having some Jewish DNA: are they the same thing? Judaism is based on matrilineal descent, so depending on where the DNA comes from, yes.
I’m really confused by this argument. How does it account for the Apostle Paul?
Interesting that King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella issued the Alhambra Decree to kick the Jews out ot Spain shortly after Christopher Columbus, a Sephardic Jew, reached the Americas. This was even after the Jews heavily funded the Spaniard military in the conquest of Gibraltar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra_Decree
P.D: there are many theories around Gibraltar, specially since it was during succession war and the country was in a civil war.
> “The DNA indicates that Christopher Columbus’s origin lay in the western Mediterranean,” said the researcher. “If there weren’t Jews in Genoa in the 15th century, the likelihood that he was from there is minimal. Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula, which makes things very tenuous.” Does anyone else think that this is a poorly argued piece? Being Jewish, and having some Jewi…
On the other hand, Jewish were expelled from the whole italic peninsula (including Genoa, etc) after very extreme period of persecution 2 centuries earlier.
> “The DNA indicates that Christopher Columbus’s origin lay in the western Mediterranean,” said the researcher. “If there weren’t Jews in Genoa in the 15th century, the likelihood that he was from there is minimal. Neither was there a big Jewish presence in the rest of the Italian peninsula, which makes things very tenuous.” Does anyone else think that this is a poorly argued piece? Being Jewish, and having some Jewi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are indications he may have been raised Jewish, and later converted to Catholicism. Or, converted but still close to Judaism. His choice to set sail for the New World on August 2, 1492, the exact date ordained for the expulsion of Jews from Spain does suggest he may have not converted yet. Further, It's also known that the family profession was weaving, a traditionally Jewish profession at the time and that Jew…
> His choice to set sail for the New World on August 2, 1492, the exact date ordained for the expulsion of Jews from Spain does suggest he may have not converted yet. This is one of the least compelling pieces of evidence: one doesn’t set out for a cross-oceanic voyage on a whim. He had sponsorship from the Spanish crown and lobbied and prepared for years for the journey. His journey was formally sanctioned by the th…
Same story in Portuguese territories as well.
An exodus of Sephardim and Muslims was a win-win for the Spanish crown - they'd lose (in their eyes) a potential 5th column in their competition against the Ottoman Empire as well as have manpower to nominally stake their claim in the New World.
[0] - https://www.jewishideas.org/article/between-toleration-and-p...
technical who-is-a-Jew type question, which is thoroughly intertwingled with European history: the Jewish diaspora were only the diaspora after they were kicked out of Israel by the Romans (in something like 70AD), and even then, only after they maintained their identity in the diaspora (c.f. the majority of other conquered peoples who did not maintain an independent identity) Before that they were just the Jews, whi…
A little etymological sidenote: Sephardic is just the Hebrew word for Spain, whereas Ashkenaz was one of the great grandsons of Noah associated with eastern and central Europe. However, when you see a Jew with the last name Ashkenazi, it's safe to assume they're Sephardi. Why? Because last names for Jews are a more recent historical development and these Jews immigrated to Sephardic territory hundreds of years ago (b…
> A little etymological sidenote: Sephardic is just the Hebrew word for Spain, whereas Ashkenaz was one of the great grandsons of Noah associated with eastern and central Europe.
Ashkenaz, the descendant of Noah, was from present-day-Syria. Thus the term Ashkenazi literally means "From the area of present-day Syria" or more concisely "From the Levant".
> However, when you see a Jew with the last name Ashkenazi, it's safe to assume they're Sephardi. Why? Because last names for Jews are a more recent historical development and these Jews immigrated to Sephardic territory hundreds of years ago (before the expulsion talked about in this thread) and have fully assimilated into the Sephardic tradition.
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I thought sephardim scattered into a lot of places, including elsewhere in Europe (even places like Amsterdam) and North Africa. Not to mention conversos that stayed put.
>even places like Amsterdam Especially places like Amsterdam. That's why they built a giant Synagogue there.
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I already posted below, but since you probably won't scroll down and I hate to see people get tricked: I would take this article with a massive grain of salt. Not "definitely wrong", but perhaps "of very dubious origin, making unusually strong claims based on unpublished, inconsistently-described evidence". For context, the "Columbus was Jewish" assertion is part of a broader "Columbus was secretly Spanish/Catalonian…
> AFAIK they welcomed converts with open arms (especially Muslim ones), While that was seemingly true in the 1400s when ex-Jewish Conversos had sometimes significant economic and even political power. That had changed by the 1500s, antisemitism (same applying to Muslim converts) became much more focused on race and not just religion. Conversos and Moriscos were persecuted and discriminated culminating in the expulsio…