Jews were barred from Spain’s New World colonies − but that didn’t stop Jewish and converso writers from describing the Americas

Jews were barred from Spain’s New World colonies − but that didn’t stop Jewish and converso writers from describing the Americas

An auto-da-fé − a public punishment for heretics − in San Bartolome Otzolotepec, in present-day Mexico. Museo Nacional de Arte via Wikimedia CommonsEvery few years, a story about Columbus resurfaces: Was the Genoese navigator who claimed the Americas for Spain secretly Jewish, from a Spanish family fleeing the Inquisition? This tale became widespread around the late 19th century, when large numbers of Jews came from Russia and Eastern Europe to …