Another of the arguments for a ‘jewish Columbus’ that I’ve seen bandied about over the years is Columbus’ relationship with two jewish astronomer-mathematicians named Abraham Zacuto and Joseph Vecinho.
The logic of this argument is simple enough: Columbus ‘closely associated’ with jews such as Zacuto and his disciple Vecinho and only someone who was himself (secretly or otherwise) jewish would do so.
The source of this argument isn’t actually the literature on Columbus himself but rather is a distortion of it, because while Zacuto and Vecinho are often brought up. No one has tried to argue that Columbus’ association with Zacuto and Vecinho means very much for Columbus, but they have tried to argue that it means that ‘jews significantly contributed to Columbus’ discovery of the New World’. (1)
The principal source used is in truth Rabbi Meyer Keyserling’s famous 1894 book ‘Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries’ whose research was plagiarised almost word-for-word by Simon Wiesenthal in his equally famous 1973 book ‘Sails of Hope’ which argued for a ‘jewish Columbus’. (2) However, neither Keyserling nor Wiesenthal go as far as arguing that Columbus’ association with Zacuto and Vecinho was because ‘Columbus was jewish’.
Now the problem with this argument is that proponents who make it forget that – as Kayserling himself argued – that Zacuto’s work was also used by the Portuguese explorer and discoverer of India Vasco da Gama – (3) who was violently anti-jewish as it happens – (4) so on the argument’s logic it would have to indicate that da Gama was also a ‘secret jew’ which there is no evidence that he was (and to my knowledge no one contends that he was).
We should understand that the actual point offered by Wiesenthal is that:
‘King John II, the grandnephew of Henry the Navigator, established a scientific institute whose duties involved laying the basis for the voyages of discovery. A good many Jewish mathematicians, astronomers, and cosmographers were members of this institute. The problems to which these scientists addressed themselves proved to be of enormous importance to the shipping of the age. It was necessary to find ways and means to enable vessels far from any coast to maintain their chosen direction. Without a significant improvement in instruments, without some method of charting the sun at different seasons of the year and thus being able to calculate the ship’s distance from the Equator, voyages into unknown seas were virtually impossible. Joseph Vecinho, the disciple of Abraham Zacuto, Rodrigo, the king’s personal physician; the mathematician Moses; and other noted Jewish scholars served on the scientific committee under the chairmanship of Bishop Castelano of Zeuta. Discovery of the method of determining a ship’s position by the angle formed between the sun and the horizon was one of the accomplishments of this community of scholars.
After much experimentation a group of scientists, which included the Jewish savants Abraham ibn Ezra, Jacob Carsoni, and Don Profazius (Jacob ben Machir), succeeded in improving marine instruments. The committee also proposed inviting experienced sea captains and scientists to Portugal in order to make their knowledge available to the country. The king approved this suggestion.
The Portuguese government had early recognized the importance of cosmography to future voyages of discovery. Thus, it had invited not only Jehuda Cresques but also the noted Jewish astronomer Abraham Zacuto to come to the country. Columbus had demonstrable contacts with this scientist.’ (5)
We can see from the above that the actual (hypothesized) relationship between Columbus, Vecinho and Zacuto is that Vecinho and Zacuto provided Columbus with an astrolabe and up-to-date maps based on their association with Henry the Navigator’s scientific institute and Columbus’ association with it.
The problem here is that Columbus is only known to have owned one book by Zacuto which was his ‘Almanach perpetuum’ of 1496, (6) which places the book in Columbus’ third voyage to the Americas (1498 to 1500) not his first (1492 to 1493) or his second (1493 to 1496). This is Zacuto’s astronomical tables (7) but these were a Latin translation by Vecinho not Zacuto’s original Hebrew work ‘Ha-Ḥibbur ha-gadol’. (8)
Despite Wiesenthal’s claim that ‘Columbus had demonstrable contacts with this scientist (meaning Zacuto)’ he doesn’t specify any actual evidence for this claim.
Kayserling simply claims Zacuto ‘knew’ Columbus because Columbus and Zacuto lived in Salamanca at the same time and Columbus bought a book that has often been ascribed to Abraham ibn Ezra called ‘De Nativitatibus’ that was printed in Venice in 1485. (9)
He writes that:
‘Zacuto doubtless called Columbus’ attention to the De Nativitatibus during the latter’s residence in Salamanca; he bought a copy of it in that city, according to a note in his own handwriting, for forty-one maravedis.’ (10)
The problem is simple enough: this is conjecture and not evidence. It is possible that Columbus and Zacuto met in Salamanca but beyond that there is no evidence of a substantial relationship between them whatsoever.
Further the fact that the only know copy of Zacuto’s astronomic tables as translated by Vecinho that was in Columbus’ possession is from 1496 not before that which necessitates – that despite Kayserling and Wiesenthal’s claims – Vecinho and Zacuto’s work played little to no role in Columbus’ discovery of the Americas despite their claims to the contrary. Indeed, we know of Columbus predicting a lunar eclipse using Zacuto’s astronomic tables only in 1504 and we don’t have a mention of these tables before then to my knowledge. (11)
I should also point out that Taviani believes Columbus may have known Vecinho since he identifies him as the ‘Master Jose’ mentioned by Columbus in two annotations, (12) however this association is far from certain and multiple other candidates for the ‘Master Jose’ mentioned are known (some jewish, some not).
However, as we can see the ‘link’ between Columbus and Vecinho as well as Zacuto is at best extremely tenuous. Further much of the ‘evidence’ for the link between them has been misstated and/or overstated so that – for example – it is widely claimed that Columbus used Zacuto’s astronomic tables in Vecinho’s translation in his voyages. This is true but is only true – as far as the evidence is concerned – for his third and fourth voyages to the Americas. It is not true for his first and second voyages to the Americas which is what the claim really seeks to link Zacuto and Vecinho to not Columbus’ last famous and less prestigious later explorations.
References
(1) Meyer Kayserling, 1894, ‘Christopher Columbus and the Participation of the Jews in the Spanish and Portuguese Discoveries’, 1st Edition, Longmans, Green & Co.: New York, pp. 14; 46
(2) Simon Wiesenthal, 1973, ‘Sails of Hope: The Secret Mission of Christopher Columbus’, 1st Edition, MacMillan: New York, pp. 147-148 which is taken without attribution and almost word-for-word from Kayserling, Op. Cit., p. 14
(3) Kayserling, Op. Cit., pp. 112-113
(4) On this please see my article: https://karlradl14.substack.com/p/vasco-da-gama-and-the-jews
(5) Wiesenthal, Op. Cit., pp. 147-148
(6) Paolo Emilio Taviani, 1985, ‘Christopher Columbus: The Grand Design’, 1st Edition, Orbis: London, p. 450
(7) Kayserling, Op. Cit., p. 14
(8) Wiesenthal, Op. Cit., p. 149
(9) Kayserling, Op. Cit., p. 14, n. 1; also, Ben Wilson, 2020, ‘Metropolis: A History of the City, Humankind’s Greatest Invention’, 1st Edition, Doubleday: New York, p. 134
(10) Ibid., p. 14
(11) Djelal Kadir, 1992, ‘Columbus and the Ends of the Earth: Europe’s Prophetic Rhetoric as Conquering Ideology’, 1st Edition, University of California Press: Oakland, p. 67
(12) Taviani, Op. Cit., p. 165
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