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Savant Calls Columbus a Jew and Hopes to Collect $40,000

July 18, 1935
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Declaring he has documents to prove that the discoverer of America was a Spanish Jew named Christobal Colon, generally known as Columbus, Maurice David will sail for Madrid this month in an effort to collect a $40,000 reward offered by the Spanish government for proof that the famed discoverer was Spanish.

In an interview with the Jewish Daily Bulletin yesterday, David declared he has established that the reason Colon called himself an Italian was that he feared the wrath of the Spanish Inquisition.

Among the documents the scholar will use to prove his case are photostatic copies of thirteen letters written to his son. According to David, the letters are signed with cryptic characters enclosed in a triangle.

The triangle, David said, is the original shield of David, while the characters are a disguised Hebrew prayer.

In addition, some of the letters contain the Hebrew greeting which is, translated, “With the help of God,” David said.

The scholar charged that the record of the discoverer’s birth in

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