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From what i understand he wasn’t that great of a guy, the holiday was instituted in 1934 by FDR by recommendation of the Knights of Columbus a catholic fraternal organization. thoughts?
he was a nice jewish boy who was forced to become a marrano. and he discovered america where the greatest torah community has been established as a refuge to those who had to flee europe. and america will be the last galus. we need to be thankful to chaim columbus for discovering our (temporary) homeland where we can shteig in torah until moshiach comes bmheiro byomeinu, amein!
I work in the only district in Illinois that doesn’t celebrate Columbus Day (I’ve been told). We traded it for the Wednesday off on thanksgiving weekend.
It became a Federal holiday in the 1970’s due to the efforts of Congressman Peter Rodino from NJ. It was a State Holiday in NY before that.
Christopher Columbus was not a Marrano. Or a converso. He was a Catholic from birth and a terrible human being and role model for children. He single-handedly enslaved two continents, almost wiping out one of them.
Sam2, he must have had superpowers. He only visited some islands and a bit of what is today Venezuela, yet he “single-handedly enslaved two continents.”
simple! So we can have the day off together with Canada
yehudayona: He did have an army, you know. He enslaved the Native Americans and stole all of their gold. This influx of gold destroyed the economy of basically all of Africa, directly leading to Africa changing their main export from gold to people.
Had Columbus treated the Native Americans with more respect, we may have never seen African slavery either. He still would have wiped out the Native Americans by disease, but that’s not really his fault.
Oh, and he did lots of other terrible things that are not appropriate for mention on this board.
he was a nice jewish boy who was forced to become a marrano. and he discovered america on Hoshana Rabba, and observed his 1st Shemini Atzerers in the USA the very next day.
Meanwhile B’H for this holiday, such as last year when it fell out on Shemini Atzeres so 1 less day of annual leave to use for Yom Tov, or next year when it comes out on Chamishi Shel Sukkos, so 1 less day of annual leave to use for Chol haMoed.
Its his accomplishments that are celebrated, not necessarily his personal qualities. He was an important explorer in world history. No big mystery. Also, an Italian-American lobby has made it something of a day of Italian pride (even though he flew under the Spanish flag).
Columbus Day is a legal holiday because the Congress passed a statute making it so. Being a legal holiday means the Federal civil service (most of which is currently laid off) has the day off, and the postal service (which hasn’t been doing too well lately) won’t attempt to deliver mail. State and local governments, and the private sector, can do what they want.
Did he do anything illegal?
Sam2, yes he enslaved the native people on some islands (despite the queen’s distaste for slavery, if you can believe some web page I found). That’s hardly the same as enslaving a continent. He wasn’t the first or the last conqueror to enslave the conquered people (think of the Bnai Yisrael in Canaan). Slavery involving Africans was also nothing new.
Europeans were obsessed with gold, so regardless of which European would have been first to reach the New World, bad stuff would have happened.
In response to: “Did he do anything illegal? “
Under existing law (and yes, they had public international law at the time) it was widely debated whether the Europeans had the “right” to go into America and conquering people and stealing their land (as well as going into Africa to kidnap people for slaves). In general the lawyers said “NO”, most governments instructed their agents to behaive themselves, and the people “on the ground” in America decided that there weren’t any lawyers for thousands of miles and most governments would not be too upset when the cash rolled in.
The Bnei Yisrael conquered Canaan only because Ha-Shem told them to. The Europeans never claimed that had a divine mandate to engage in slavery or conquest (the closest is the American idea of “manifest destiny”, and not really). Unless Ha-Shem tells you to do so, theft and murder are not allowed, even for goyim.
FWIW, there’s an interesting NPR blog entry today about Columbus and his Day. President Benjamin Harrison was the first to call for a national observance on the 400th anniversary of his first voyage. The Italian-Americans touted it as a way to emphasize their patriotism in an era when they were the victims of prejudice (11 Sicilian immigrants were lynched in New Orleans in 1891). It seems to me they would have more correct to push for Verrazano Day, since he at least explored North America.
Amerigo Vespucci was chopped liver??????
Columbus probably WAS of Marrano blood, perhaps not halachically Jewish, however. There were Jewish simanim in his family crest, and I was always taught that the first person to set foot on the Americas was a Jew from his ship.
The first person to set foot on the Americas was Leif Erikson.
yehudayona: If you want to research a truly inspirational explorer, look up Bartolome de la Casas. Columbus was the worst, de la Casas was the best, and most were in the middle.
akuperma: That’s not so Pashut. Goyim probably have R’shus to wage war and capture each other. There are Gemaras that imply this.
Many hispanics and Latin/South Americans are incensed at Columbus Day, actually. As are Native Americans.
The first person to set foot in the New World was the ancestor of the Indians.
Under their own laws, if the goyim decide something is illegal, it is clearly their right prohibit it. By European “public international law” of that era (jus gentium), Columbus was a criminal.
Hispanics regard “Columbus Day” as “Dia de la raza” (and see it as the creation of their ethnic group- which is a mixture of Spanish, Indians and Africans, with Spanish being the dominant culture. It’s mainly the American Indians who hate Columbus.
And most Spanish have Jewish ancestry. Columbus was clearly ashamed of his, and was making a point of being a very fanatic Catholic. Had he wanted to flee Spain, as a mariner, he could have done so with ease.
I heard that if not for Dr. Middos, America would not have been discovered. (Don’t turn your ships around… you’l discover America.. if you don’t who will?) Let’s have a Dr. Middos day.
Please don’t ditch Columbus Day, evil slavelord or no! I actually got to school in time for a change today!
While Europeans didn’t claim that conquering the Americas was a divine command, they believed that they had the duty to convert the heathens to Christianity, even forcibly. It’s not a long stretch from that idea to the notion that it G-d wanted them to conquer the indigenous people.
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