DNA test reveals Columbus’ secret Jewish heritage

The results of a 22-year-long investigation by forensic scientists was revealed in a documentary on Spain’s National Day.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A documentary aired Saturday in Spain revealed that exhaustive DNA testing suggests that explorer Christopher Columbus was a Sephardic Jew from Spain, and not a native of Italy of non-Jewish ancestry as traditionally believed.

The show, entitled “Columbus DNA: His True Origin,” summarized a 22-year-long investigation by forensic scientists who tested tiny samples of the explorer’s remains, which are buried the Seville Cathedral, as well as samples from his known relatives.

Prof. José Antonio Lorente of Granada University, who co-led the research team, called the conclusion as “almost absolutely reliable.”

“We have DNA from Christopher Columbus, very partial, but sufficient,” he said in the show. “We have DNA from Hernando Colón, his son. And both in the Y chromosome (male) and in the mitochondrial DNA (transmitted by the mother) of Hernando there are traits compatible with Jewish origin.”

The findings refute a belief long held by many historians that Columbus was of non-Jewish ancestry from Genoa, Italy.

Columbus began his explorations for the Spanish monarchy in the 1490’s, a period well known in Jewish history as that of the Expulsion, when King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella ordered that all Jews in their realm had to either convert or leave the country.

Over the course of a century of persecution that concluded with what became known as the Alhambra Decree, more than 200,000 Jews – over half of Spain’s Jewish population – became Catholics. In 1492, 40,000-100,000 were expelled.

Also in 1492, in the first of his four sea expeditions, Columbus left Castile in August with three ships and made landfall in the Americas, specifically in the Bahamas, on October 12. In the same trip he also discovered Cuba and Haiti.

In his later trips he discovered South America and Central America. He named the native people he found “Indios,” or Indians, because of his mistaken belief that he had reached the Asian continent.

Columbus himself identified as a Christian, and his personal writings attest not only to his dedication to his faith, but to his desire to bring all others to believe in Christianity as well.

According to the National Christopher Columbus Association, “Columbus saw himself as a man especially chosen by God for a mission – not just to discover a new route to the Indies, or even new lands, but by that to make possible the spread of the Faith to all.”

The documentary was appropriately released on Spain’s National Day, which commemorates Columbus’s arrival in the New World.

DNA testinggenetic signaturesSephardic JewrySpain