The Man Who Discovered Columbus

Maurice was delighted. In a short time he acquired a reading and speadking knowledge of French, English, Spanish, Italian and Polish. And then his travels began. From one European country to another he went-to England and to Austria, to France and to Spain-and where not ? He met royalty and nobility on intimate terms, purveyed his wares in person to the late King Loepold of Belgium and to his nephew, Philip, Duke of Saxen Coburg Gotha. He was persona grata in the private study of Cout Goluchowsky. Prime-Minister of Austria-Hungary and a welcome visitor of many a personage of high rank in every other country of Europe.

Finally, Mr. David attempted to go into business for himself, and then decided to try his luck in the New World. In the first few years of his stay in New York he worked at advertising and having saved up a sufficient sum of money went back to numismatics, the occupation which to him was a labor of love. He has been in it ever since. Incidentally, it was Mr. David who some thirty years ago published the first Red Book Telephone Business Directory later taken over and issued by the Reuben H. Donnelly firm. During his career as dealer in rare coins he met a number of prominent collectors the world over, and has quite some interesting stories to tell about them.

RECOGNIZED MONOGRAM

On his return from Spain seven years ago, a friend and fellowdealter, and a Hebrew scholar into the bargain, chanced upon him in the street and inquired whether he, David, could read the old Spanish handwritings of the Fifteenth century. The answer being in the affirmative, the two friends repaired to the Columbus Room at the New York Public Library and there perused the reproductions of Columbus’s letters published by the Italian government in 1892. The first thing that sturck Mr. David was the monogram at the left top corner which he immediately recognized as something he had seen before-on the letters he had been receiving from his father, his brothers and other religious Jews. It was an old Hebrew greeting consisting of two characters in script-a Beth (B) and a Hai (H), the first letters of the words Boruch Hashem-Praised be the Lord.

David was thrilled. His excitement grew when he noticed that of the thirteen letters to the discoverer’s son there was one and only one that did not bear the Hebrew monogram. And for a very good reason-this monogramless letter was intended to be shown to her Catholic Majesty, Queen Isabella of Spain, with the practically unavoidable chance that it would find its way into the zealous hands of the fathers of the “Holy” Inquitsition, her closest advisers. And then-Columbus’s or, rather, Colon’s glorioius career-and life-would have come to a speedy and untimely end.

But there was still another thing that worried me,” Mr. David comtinued the story of his momentous discovery. “What did the letters in Colon’s triangular signature stand for ? And then an instpiration came over me-I substituted Hebrew letters having the same sound for the Latin ones, and at once perceived that they were the first characters of the following words in Hebrew, reading from right to left: SHADAI, SHADAI, ADOINAI, SHADAI, YEHOVA MOLAI CHESED, NAUTHAI OVON, PESHA, CHATUO, which is nothing else but an abreviated version of the Kaddosh (paryer for the dead) and last confession of the Jew-Vidui. Translated, these words mean God, God, My Lord, God, Jehovah Replete with Mercy, Bearing (the equivalent of Ferens, present participle of the Latin verb Fera-to carry, to bear) (my) Offences, Transgressions, Sins. Then it became clear to me beyond the shadow of a douby that Colon of Pontevedra, Spain, converted Jew and possibly a Marrano, publicly pretending to be a native of Genoa in order to ayert suspicion, did penance in this disguised way. More, in his last will and testament he requests his son and his son’s descentdant to use the triangular signature in perpetuity. Thus, in a manner known only to himself, he made his children and children’s children say Kaddosh for the repose of his soul.

“Yet even this did not satisfy me completely. There was still a very important missing link in the chain of evidence. It is a matter of common knowledge that the universally adopted Jewish emblem is a double triangle, who apexes, if joined would form a regular hexagon. Why then, did Colon use a single triangle for his emblem ? Finally it occurred to me to consult the Jewish Encyclopedia. Imagine how overjoyed 1 was when I real that while the double triangle or the Shield of David had been known to History as far back as 300 B.C., headstones had been discovered in old Jewish cemeteries in Spain and in southern France, erected since early the twelfth century A.D. with only a single triangle engraved on them ! My reasearch was now complete and the proofs of Colon’s Spanish-Jewish descent incontrovertible.”

After taking leave of Mr. David, I read through his book in one sitting. Many more proofs are brought there than transpired during our talk, such authorities as Garcia de la Reiga and Blasco Ibanez’s last book En Busca del Gran Kan (In Quest of the Great Khan) being cited exhaustively, although neither of these two, not being a Hebrew scholar, could have possibly produced the conclusive evidence of Mr. David’s book.

I read “Who Was Columbus’?” and was fascinated by Mr. David’s incontestable disconvery that Don Cristobal Colon, the fearless explorer, First Admiral of the Athantic and Viceroy of the West Indies, was himself a Jew, not by birth alone, but in his heart and soul as well.