In 1492...

So one of the perks of working on Wall Street is you get off on Columbus Day. After all, the entire Banking Sector has to honor the bankers that financed the New World Expedition, which made America possible. Speaking of which I read an interesting essay on Columbus by Phyllis Eckelman who argues since times were so bad for Jews (remember a little something called the Spanish Inquisition?)and Jews were once again fighting to survive, they actually had lots to do with discovering America. As Eckelman puts it:

Old Jewish dreams and longings for a land where they could live unmolested, began to reawaken with the excitement of the AGE OF DISCOVERY. These longings had accompanied the Jews on their wanderings ever since they had been driven from their homeland in Biblical times.

Wow. Sounds like Jewish dreams don't change very much at all, do they? I wonder if these Jews were alive today, would they be funding the Aliyah Revolution?



Here's another very exciting excerpt:

Columbus, having failed to convince the Portuguese King, John II, about his dream of finding LAND TO THE WEST, WENT TO SPAIN. There he would have been met with the same type of rejection except for one outstanding and overruling factor: THE JEWISH ELEMENT. Namely a converted Jew, LUIS DE SANTANGEL, finance member of King Ferdinand's Court, who "saw through" Columbus, but realized that because of his invincible single- mindedness, he should be entrusted with the venture to discover LAND TO THE WEST. Rightly or wrongly, he believed Columbus to be Jewish. He proceeded to press his opinions on the Monarchs. THIS MAN "MADE THE DIFFERENCE" IN THEIR DECISION.

Because the royal treasury was without sufficient funds to pay for this expedition, LUIS DE SANTANGEL offered to advance the throne the cost of the voyage out of his own pocket in the amount equivalent to $4,500.00 (U.S. Dollars).

Thus establishing the following propositions:

- The New World was discovered by an expedition TOTALLY financed by Jewish money.

- Money for the first voyage was voluntarily given because the Jews believed in the enterprise.

- Most of the money to finance subsequent exploitations was confiscated by the Spanish Monarchs from Jewish sources... But neither the Jews or the Moslems were permitted to settle in the New World until after 1502.