Speculations that Italian Americans’ problematic hero, Christopher Columbus, might have actually been Jewish were all over the news this month, with coverage ranging from NPR to the BBC to The Times of Israel. A new documentary on the research behind it claims that Columbus’ remains have been found and that those remains might credibly be of Jewish origin. But despite what the title (Colón ADN, su verdadero origen / Columbus’ DNA, his true origin) teases, there’s no such thing as “Jewish DNA.” And the media’s eagerness to shift Columbus’ religious belonging away from Christianity signals our ongoing failure to truly reckon with the violent legacy of White Christian imperialism.
Columbus’ true origin?
Initially broadcast on October 12th (when Spain celebrates Christopher Columbus as part of observing its National Day), Columbus’ DNA features forensic anthropologist José Antonio Lorente, who not only claims that remains recently unearthed in the Seville Cathedral are those of Columbus, but also that data suggest these might be the remains of a person of Jewish origin.
Both Columbus’ origins and his final resting place have long been shrouded in mystery. According to scholar of Sephardic Judaism Devin Naar, for at least a century there have been claims that Columbus was Jewish—which would suggest he hailed from Spain rather than Italy, as there were comparatively few Jews in 15th century Italy. Spain’s Jewish community at this time was large by comparison, though most were conversos, Jews who were converted to Roman Catholicism in the wake of widespread violence and oppression.
Lorente’s claims in Columbus’ DNA, which have yet to be peer reviewed, have been sharply questioned by leading scientists, including geneticist Antonio Alonso, who told El País: “no assessment can be made after watching the documentary, since it does not provide any data on what has been analyzed.” So it’s unclear at this point whether these even are the remains of Columbus. And regardless of the remains’ origin, there are far more problematic issues with the claim that Columbus was Jewish.
There is no such thing as ‘Jewish DNA’
While there are genetic markers that are more or less prevalent among Jewish populations, there’s no such thing as “Jewish DNA.” More importantly, DNA is not identity. Lab results tell us less than nothing about how Columbus or his family might have understood and lived into their identities. There is no test for whether he and his practiced Judaism in secret or were deeply dedicated to the Catholic Church. DNA doesn’t tell us whether Columbus thought of himself as a Jew, lived as a Jew, or had a worldview influenced by Jewish teaching.
What we do know is that Spain was a complicated place to be Jewish—or anything other than Catholic—in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. Following a wave of riots and violence around 1391, roughly 20,000 Jews were converted to Catholicism by force. These conversions were neither voluntary nor educated. While some recognized that ties to Catholicism conveyed increased social and political privilege, others neither wanted nor knew how to be Catholic. Many continued their Jewish lives in secret.
Spain saw a second wave of conversos in 1410, following Dominican preaching campaigns that drew tens of thousands of Jews to Catholicism. Many of these Jews chose conversion after learning about Catholicism; they lived Catholic lives, persuaded by Catholic theology. Others, like some of those in the first wave, were compelled by the social and economic mobility Catholic belonging conferred throughout Spain. Both groups had Jewish relatives and navigated religiously pluralistic social lives, but their relationships to their Jewish heritage and their new Christian identities varied widely.
Thus, even if a DNA test could tell us whether Columbus’ ancestors—or even Columbus himself—were Jewish, it couldn’t tell us how—or whether—his family practiced Judaism a generation or more after these waves of conversion. We cannot know whether his family quietly tried to retain Jewish customs and keep Jewish holidays, or if they left these practices behind after publicly and privately embracing Catholicism. In other words, if we knew for certain that the remains were Columbus’ (which we don’t), and if we knew that the remains belonged to a Sephardic Jew (which we also don’t), we still wouldn’t know anything about Columbus’ religious life, beliefs, or identity.
Doctrines and discoveries
What we do know, however, is that Columbus’ royal patrons expelled the Jews from Spain in 1492 (the same year that Columbus “sailed the ocean blue” to the Caribbean). Under the imprimatur of the Roman Catholic Church and with the financial sponsorship of Spanish regents Ferdinand and Isabella, Columbus “discovered” a “New World”—bringing genocide and Western European Christian imperialism in his wake.
Despite the well-documented record of his atrocities, Catholic Spain and Italy and many in the ostensibly secular United States continue to claim and celebrate Columbus’ “discoveries.” The Knights of Columbus, the Catholic organization named in his honor, naturally defend him on their website, dismissing criticisms of Columbus as “fake history,” calling his critics anti-Catholic, and asserting that he was a “man of faith and courage, not a monster.”
Ultimately, we gain less from asking ourselves whether Columbus might have been Jewish than from asking why some might be eager to put distance between Columbus and Christianity. Both the Roman Catholic Church and the United States are still coming to terms with their own violent imperial legacies. At a time when protestors are pulling down his statues and demanding public acknowledgement of the damage he inflicted, Columbus’ ancestry matters far less than his legacy. All the irresponsible and decontextualized claims that “Columbus was likely… Jewish” don’t change the essential truth about the man or his mission: that he and his crew enslaved, kidnapped, and nearly wiped out an entire population using Christian imperialist logic, doctrine, and force.
