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Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge
At the end of the fifteenth century, the Spanish Inquisition forced many Jews to flee the country. The most adventurous among them took to the high seas as freewheeling outlaws. In ships bearing names such as the Prophet Samuel, Queen Esther, and Shield of Abraham, they attacked and plundered the Spanish fleet while forming alliances with other European powers to ensure the safety of Jews living in hiding.
JEWISH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN is the entertaining saga of a hidden chapter in Jewish history and of the cruelty, terror, and greed that flourished during the Age of Discovery. Readers will meet such daring figures as “the Great Jewish Pirate” Sinan, Barbarossa’s second-in-command; the pirate rabbi Samuel Palache, who founded Holland's Jewish community; Abraham Cohen Henriques, an arms dealer who used his cunning and economic muscle to find safe havens for other Jews; and his pirate brother Moses, who is credited with the capture of the Spanish silver fleet in 1628--the largest heist in pirate history.
Filled with high-sea adventures—including encounters with Captain Morgan and other legendary pirates—and detailed portraits of cities stacked high with plunder, such as Port Royal, Jamaica, JEWISH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN captures a gritty and glorious era of history from an unusual and eye-opening perspective.
JEWISH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN is the entertaining saga of a hidden chapter in Jewish history and of the cruelty, terror, and greed that flourished during the Age of Discovery. Readers will meet such daring figures as “the Great Jewish Pirate” Sinan, Barbarossa’s second-in-command; the pirate rabbi Samuel Palache, who founded Holland's Jewish community; Abraham Cohen Henriques, an arms dealer who used his cunning and economic muscle to find safe havens for other Jews; and his pirate brother Moses, who is credited with the capture of the Spanish silver fleet in 1628--the largest heist in pirate history.
Filled with high-sea adventures—including encounters with Captain Morgan and other legendary pirates—and detailed portraits of cities stacked high with plunder, such as Port Royal, Jamaica, JEWISH PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN captures a gritty and glorious era of history from an unusual and eye-opening perspective.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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March 3, 2015My two word review: Oy vey.
I'm struggling to review this book because I don't know what to complain about first. I think the first thing to note, by way of explaining this book, is how the title and the subtitle are wildly inaccurate: the title promises Jewish pirates in the Caribbean who are out for revenge and freedom of religion. There are maybe less than five examples of Jewish pirates here; and the biggest names are either not pirates or not in the Caribbean. As to what motivated them, it's hard to say.
Let me pause my complaining (I was going to say "kvetching" by way of proving my bona fides) to note what this book does right and why it might be useful: when we think of American Jews, the images that come to mind--bagels and lox, Woody Allen, Polish pogroms--tend to be associated with Ashkenazim, the Eastern European Jews that made up the large influx of Jewish immigrants in the 19th century. But for a long time, the big Jewish population in the New World was Sephardic: Spanish or Mediterranean, speaking Ladino or just Spanish--not the Yiddish that I jokingly used above--and with a long history of exile and danger. Why are there all these Dutch Jews with Spanish names? Cue Mel Brooks's History of the World song, "The Inquisition."
So: this book is useful because it reminds us that there are other cultures of Judaism, each with their own history. (That said, there's a lot here of the old story: minority group pushed into some particular field of work, like banking; that particular field of work turns out to be very lucrative; the majority kills, exiles, taxes, and/or pushes the minority out. Sephardic or Ashkenazic, the story tends to crop up.)
That's the good reminder this book provides.
Now, the bad: Kritzler is very invested in this story of a Jewish direct fight against oppression. Which isn't really what the book is about. Most of the action here involves a Jewish indirect fight against oppression: so the story he really seems to be telling is one where Jewish merchants funded pirates against the Spanish. OK, that could be an interesting story... except his evidence doesn't even entirely support that story. Set aside the difficulty of assigning motives to people 400 years dead, Kritzler quickly glosses over the times that these so-called Jewish pirates actually sided with Spain.
And! Most annoyingly, the history here is pretty thin and speculative, which is understandable: because of the Spanish rules about Jews, many of the characters here are conversos, Jews who converted to Catholicism. (Under what conditions? Kritzler assumes all the conversos were forced and reluctant converts who secretly kept their Jewish ways--but where's the evidence?) So basically we have a story about Spanish merchants, who might or might not be Jews, and who might or might not be secret adherents to Judaism.
So to fill out his story of heroic anti-Spanish Jews, Kritzler does the worst thing any historian could do: he takes as true anything said that buttresses his argument, even if the source of that is hearsay, gossip, or torture-evoked confession. Yeah, you'd be surprised--or maybe you wouldn't--that if you take the Spanish Inquisition's evidence as gospel, you end up with a story of Jewish conspiracy against Spain.
I'm struggling to review this book because I don't know what to complain about first. I think the first thing to note, by way of explaining this book, is how the title and the subtitle are wildly inaccurate: the title promises Jewish pirates in the Caribbean who are out for revenge and freedom of religion. There are maybe less than five examples of Jewish pirates here; and the biggest names are either not pirates or not in the Caribbean. As to what motivated them, it's hard to say.
Let me pause my complaining (I was going to say "kvetching" by way of proving my bona fides) to note what this book does right and why it might be useful: when we think of American Jews, the images that come to mind--bagels and lox, Woody Allen, Polish pogroms--tend to be associated with Ashkenazim, the Eastern European Jews that made up the large influx of Jewish immigrants in the 19th century. But for a long time, the big Jewish population in the New World was Sephardic: Spanish or Mediterranean, speaking Ladino or just Spanish--not the Yiddish that I jokingly used above--and with a long history of exile and danger. Why are there all these Dutch Jews with Spanish names? Cue Mel Brooks's History of the World song, "The Inquisition."
So: this book is useful because it reminds us that there are other cultures of Judaism, each with their own history. (That said, there's a lot here of the old story: minority group pushed into some particular field of work, like banking; that particular field of work turns out to be very lucrative; the majority kills, exiles, taxes, and/or pushes the minority out. Sephardic or Ashkenazic, the story tends to crop up.)
That's the good reminder this book provides.
Now, the bad: Kritzler is very invested in this story of a Jewish direct fight against oppression. Which isn't really what the book is about. Most of the action here involves a Jewish indirect fight against oppression: so the story he really seems to be telling is one where Jewish merchants funded pirates against the Spanish. OK, that could be an interesting story... except his evidence doesn't even entirely support that story. Set aside the difficulty of assigning motives to people 400 years dead, Kritzler quickly glosses over the times that these so-called Jewish pirates actually sided with Spain.
And! Most annoyingly, the history here is pretty thin and speculative, which is understandable: because of the Spanish rules about Jews, many of the characters here are conversos, Jews who converted to Catholicism. (Under what conditions? Kritzler assumes all the conversos were forced and reluctant converts who secretly kept their Jewish ways--but where's the evidence?) So basically we have a story about Spanish merchants, who might or might not be Jews, and who might or might not be secret adherents to Judaism.
So to fill out his story of heroic anti-Spanish Jews, Kritzler does the worst thing any historian could do: he takes as true anything said that buttresses his argument, even if the source of that is hearsay, gossip, or torture-evoked confession. Yeah, you'd be surprised--or maybe you wouldn't--that if you take the Spanish Inquisition's evidence as gospel, you end up with a story of Jewish conspiracy against Spain.
May 23, 2017
If you are looking for a tale of kosher swashbuckling, this is not it. We do have a small number of named Jewish pirates, one a Rabbi, and a few Jewish senior lieutenants, but never do we see them fighting from the decks of ships, flourishing a cutlass or otherwise actively engaged in anything promised by the long title of this book. The history detailed here touches most of planet and not just the Caribbean. Every few pages the word "pirate" is inserted, almost as an afterthought, emphasizing the absence of an action filled history rather than documenting one.
So much for the bad news
Once you get over the misleading title, this is a solid piece of readable history.
What is documented here is a struggle between a cruel, inhumane religiously intolerant Spain and a people willing to engage in any kind of subterfuge, conspiracy and occasionally acts of piracy to survive.
Parts of this book are depressing. This is a history of lives destroyed and people tortured because they were not sufficiently Christian. Spain forced people to convert to Catholicism then a generation later refused to trust the converted. Not content to crush the conversos in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition followed them to every remote New World colony where the victim populations would seek refuge. These remote places were, not coincidentally, places that had been colonized, at least in part, by Jews also seeking safety from the Inquisitors as well as the Spanish government. The arrival of the black robed priestly torturers always meant suffering and flaming death. Hundreds and thousands would die and similar numbers forced into cruel poverty. The careful records of forced confessions would be maintained and used to cause more evil for anyone suspected, or merely not in with the "right" people.
With minor editing and a new title, this is the story of the extremes a threatened people will use to protect themselves from an extreme evil. Jewish populations and their allies in the converso community had everything to gain by working against their nominal home land. They could not expect justice or even the right to be left alone.
Edward Kritzer has written a good history and done so in a highly readable style. He is neither a heavy handed academic nor -despite the title- a sensationalist. He does not do a proper job of documenting the relative business success of Jewish/ Judaizes and their non-Jewish counter parts. Furthermore he tends to use the terms," Jews", "Judaizer" and "converso" and "Portugese" as interchangeable. This has the feel of conceding that the Inquisition was correct to suspect and attack these people. He rarely reminds his readers that Inquisition documents were the products of extreme torture and therefore never trustworthy.
These criticisms aside, this is a worthy read. The standard history of the European settlement of the Americas rarely delves into the business aspects of developing new colonies. As such there tends to be little about the role of the merchants colonists who made the colonies a paying investment for the parent countries. Kritzler makes it clear that Jewish money, Jewish business acumen and Jewish warriors were disproportionate among the actors who founded European America. Kritzler brings into this discussion records not used in earlier texts adding important original evidence to support his conclusions.
There is something of a happy ending as Jewish populations would find protection with the help of enlightened or at least self-interested individuals and governments. This protection would always come with caveats. It was never a charter for full civil rights. Usually it came from governments wanting to have the cash advantages of a business savvy population.
So much for the bad news
Once you get over the misleading title, this is a solid piece of readable history.
What is documented here is a struggle between a cruel, inhumane religiously intolerant Spain and a people willing to engage in any kind of subterfuge, conspiracy and occasionally acts of piracy to survive.
Parts of this book are depressing. This is a history of lives destroyed and people tortured because they were not sufficiently Christian. Spain forced people to convert to Catholicism then a generation later refused to trust the converted. Not content to crush the conversos in Spain, the Spanish Inquisition followed them to every remote New World colony where the victim populations would seek refuge. These remote places were, not coincidentally, places that had been colonized, at least in part, by Jews also seeking safety from the Inquisitors as well as the Spanish government. The arrival of the black robed priestly torturers always meant suffering and flaming death. Hundreds and thousands would die and similar numbers forced into cruel poverty. The careful records of forced confessions would be maintained and used to cause more evil for anyone suspected, or merely not in with the "right" people.
With minor editing and a new title, this is the story of the extremes a threatened people will use to protect themselves from an extreme evil. Jewish populations and their allies in the converso community had everything to gain by working against their nominal home land. They could not expect justice or even the right to be left alone.
Edward Kritzer has written a good history and done so in a highly readable style. He is neither a heavy handed academic nor -despite the title- a sensationalist. He does not do a proper job of documenting the relative business success of Jewish/ Judaizes and their non-Jewish counter parts. Furthermore he tends to use the terms," Jews", "Judaizer" and "converso" and "Portugese" as interchangeable. This has the feel of conceding that the Inquisition was correct to suspect and attack these people. He rarely reminds his readers that Inquisition documents were the products of extreme torture and therefore never trustworthy.
These criticisms aside, this is a worthy read. The standard history of the European settlement of the Americas rarely delves into the business aspects of developing new colonies. As such there tends to be little about the role of the merchants colonists who made the colonies a paying investment for the parent countries. Kritzler makes it clear that Jewish money, Jewish business acumen and Jewish warriors were disproportionate among the actors who founded European America. Kritzler brings into this discussion records not used in earlier texts adding important original evidence to support his conclusions.
There is something of a happy ending as Jewish populations would find protection with the help of enlightened or at least self-interested individuals and governments. This protection would always come with caveats. It was never a charter for full civil rights. Usually it came from governments wanting to have the cash advantages of a business savvy population.
April 25, 2010
I'll start out with some things I liked about this book:
* I learned some interesting parts of history, such as that Jews were banned from Britain by King John, and let back in my Cromwell (unofficially), and Charles II (officially)
* I learned a bit about the spread of sugar, and that for a long time it was a delicacy only affordable to the very rich
* I got some leads on things I'd like to learn more about at some point, such as the history of Jamaica
There was enough to keep me reading through to the end, although I considered stopping a few times. The main problems I had were:
* The narrative dashed backwards and forwards in time and space. At its best, I felt like I was sitting with someone at a table, sharing wine, and listening to him randomly associate about things he found exciting. ("Let me tell you this great story about Samuel Palache, the Pirate Rabbi. Hah! I bet you didn't know there were Pirate Rabbis, did you?") But for a history book, where I was trying to understand a flow of events, it was pretty frustrating.
* He did some hand-waving about some terrible things. It comes across like, "oh, sure, Jews participated in the slave trade, but everybody was doing it, so it wasn't considered immoral". Yes, that's true, but nowadays we do consider it immoral, it was slavery, and it was wrong, and as a Jew I feel ashamed that any of us took part in it.
* I'm 100% sure that he didn't intend this, and would be unhappy to see me write this, but I feel like he falls into the trap of portraying Jews as having some sort of shadowy control over world events. Jews were getting tortured and burned at the stake by the Inquisition, were fleeing from place to place, and we were supposed to be in control? A few Jews seem to be doing pretty well, and doing a lot of commerce, but I'm willing to bet that they were an exception. I fear the day when a non-Jew says to me, "hey, I was just reading this great book about Jewish pirates, and how they controlled world events and brought down the Spanish empire!"
* He has a tendency to first talk about something as possible, and then state it as fact. The worst of these is on page 184, where he writes "Cromwell would not have reached a decision about where to attack without consulting Carvajal [a Jew:], who recommended Jamaica." The first part is hypothetical (we can assume that...), and the second is stating a fact based on assumptions. I felt that in a number of places, a few facts get being stretched an awful lot to support the author's hypotheses.
* I learned some interesting parts of history, such as that Jews were banned from Britain by King John, and let back in my Cromwell (unofficially), and Charles II (officially)
* I learned a bit about the spread of sugar, and that for a long time it was a delicacy only affordable to the very rich
* I got some leads on things I'd like to learn more about at some point, such as the history of Jamaica
There was enough to keep me reading through to the end, although I considered stopping a few times. The main problems I had were:
* The narrative dashed backwards and forwards in time and space. At its best, I felt like I was sitting with someone at a table, sharing wine, and listening to him randomly associate about things he found exciting. ("Let me tell you this great story about Samuel Palache, the Pirate Rabbi. Hah! I bet you didn't know there were Pirate Rabbis, did you?") But for a history book, where I was trying to understand a flow of events, it was pretty frustrating.
* He did some hand-waving about some terrible things. It comes across like, "oh, sure, Jews participated in the slave trade, but everybody was doing it, so it wasn't considered immoral". Yes, that's true, but nowadays we do consider it immoral, it was slavery, and it was wrong, and as a Jew I feel ashamed that any of us took part in it.
* I'm 100% sure that he didn't intend this, and would be unhappy to see me write this, but I feel like he falls into the trap of portraying Jews as having some sort of shadowy control over world events. Jews were getting tortured and burned at the stake by the Inquisition, were fleeing from place to place, and we were supposed to be in control? A few Jews seem to be doing pretty well, and doing a lot of commerce, but I'm willing to bet that they were an exception. I fear the day when a non-Jew says to me, "hey, I was just reading this great book about Jewish pirates, and how they controlled world events and brought down the Spanish empire!"
* He has a tendency to first talk about something as possible, and then state it as fact. The worst of these is on page 184, where he writes "Cromwell would not have reached a decision about where to attack without consulting Carvajal [a Jew:], who recommended Jamaica." The first part is hypothetical (we can assume that...), and the second is stating a fact based on assumptions. I felt that in a number of places, a few facts get being stretched an awful lot to support the author's hypotheses.
October 9, 2022
Could not finish. Now I have a headache.
What started as a fascinating possible narrative about Jewish pirates coordinating to bring down the Spanish Empire after 1492 and the Inquisition devolved quickly into scattered bits and pieces delivered randomly and repetitively.
There is a broad picture presented of the global trade network that exploded after the “discovery” of the world by European sea adventurers and this book is not without merit, but I think that there are better writers that can deliver these ideas with more clarity.
What started as a fascinating possible narrative about Jewish pirates coordinating to bring down the Spanish Empire after 1492 and the Inquisition devolved quickly into scattered bits and pieces delivered randomly and repetitively.
There is a broad picture presented of the global trade network that exploded after the “discovery” of the world by European sea adventurers and this book is not without merit, but I think that there are better writers that can deliver these ideas with more clarity.
February 3, 2020
Oh god. This book has so many fabulous concepts and such interesting research packed into one of the most poorly-written nonfiction texts I've ever encountered.
It took me months to wade through it, despite the fact that I was totally fascinated by the subject matter, because Kritzler has absolutely no sense of how to construct a book. His chapters jump around in subject and timeline so constantly that sentence to sentence may take you a leap of fifty years with no real reason. In the most basic sense, there is no order to the book. He basically talks about things the way a really enthusastic dinner-table historian talks about things, albeit with more facts at his fingertips.
A few other maddening things:
- It's really hard to tell what's his own solid research, what's total conjecture, and what's his interpretation of other people's work. The footnotes make it worse - sometimes the footnote restates word for word what he put into the text, sometimes a footnote says things that should have gone into the text INSTEAD, sometimes there is no footnote when he's quoting things, sometimes the footnote is literally just a link to a geocities website or cites somebody's descendants as a source.
- It would be easy to think, reading this book, that pretty much no indigenous people ever lived in any of the places he's describing, and he bends over backwards to avoid implicating the Jews as much as he possibly can in both the slaughter of Indians and the active slave trade. As a Jew myself who has been consistently taught that my people have a special moral imperative, I would have been MUCH more interested in a book that actually spent real time examining how members of one oppressed group were nevertheless complicit and sometimes highly active in the oppression of others. Instead, Columbus comes out looking like a pretty cool dude. It's really, really hard to take a book seriously that purports to re-examine the history of the "Age of Discovery" and gives a pass to Columbus because he was nice to the Jews.
- You don't find out until the end that the book was bankrolled by one of the descendants of one of the main characters he examines from the time period -- woulda been nice to know up front, buddy!
In the end, this book is such a mess I can't decide whether or not I think it's worth anyone else's time, especially since it's hard for me to a) keep track of any of what I read because his chronology is such a mess and b) know what data I can actually trust versus what is mostly just enthusiastic assumption on his part. However, I did just go see a fascinating exhibition in Santa Fe about exactly this topic, and the book did give me some useful context for what I saw, and the content IS fascinating. So maybe worth picking up if you can read with a grain of salt and don't need authors to lay out dates in a sensible way in order to keep track of things?
It took me months to wade through it, despite the fact that I was totally fascinated by the subject matter, because Kritzler has absolutely no sense of how to construct a book. His chapters jump around in subject and timeline so constantly that sentence to sentence may take you a leap of fifty years with no real reason. In the most basic sense, there is no order to the book. He basically talks about things the way a really enthusastic dinner-table historian talks about things, albeit with more facts at his fingertips.
A few other maddening things:
- It's really hard to tell what's his own solid research, what's total conjecture, and what's his interpretation of other people's work. The footnotes make it worse - sometimes the footnote restates word for word what he put into the text, sometimes a footnote says things that should have gone into the text INSTEAD, sometimes there is no footnote when he's quoting things, sometimes the footnote is literally just a link to a geocities website or cites somebody's descendants as a source.
- It would be easy to think, reading this book, that pretty much no indigenous people ever lived in any of the places he's describing, and he bends over backwards to avoid implicating the Jews as much as he possibly can in both the slaughter of Indians and the active slave trade. As a Jew myself who has been consistently taught that my people have a special moral imperative, I would have been MUCH more interested in a book that actually spent real time examining how members of one oppressed group were nevertheless complicit and sometimes highly active in the oppression of others. Instead, Columbus comes out looking like a pretty cool dude. It's really, really hard to take a book seriously that purports to re-examine the history of the "Age of Discovery" and gives a pass to Columbus because he was nice to the Jews.
- You don't find out until the end that the book was bankrolled by one of the descendants of one of the main characters he examines from the time period -- woulda been nice to know up front, buddy!
In the end, this book is such a mess I can't decide whether or not I think it's worth anyone else's time, especially since it's hard for me to a) keep track of any of what I read because his chronology is such a mess and b) know what data I can actually trust versus what is mostly just enthusiastic assumption on his part. However, I did just go see a fascinating exhibition in Santa Fe about exactly this topic, and the book did give me some useful context for what I saw, and the content IS fascinating. So maybe worth picking up if you can read with a grain of salt and don't need authors to lay out dates in a sensible way in order to keep track of things?
February 10, 2009
I thought this was so interesting. It tied together for me a lot of pieces of information I had about the experiences of Jews in the New World, (and Amsterdam, England and Spain) from the time of their expulsion through the founding of this country. David Liss, if you haven't read this book, you need to... I was thinking about "Coffee Traders" the whole time I was reading this. Kritzler discovered a couple of new pieces of information through his research... which surprised me; it doesn't occur to me that in studying history of 300-400 years ago you could uncover a heretofore lost bit of truth. Fascinating.
December 14, 2023
I'm more interested in the early 18th century period of piracy in the Caribbean, rather than the 17th century that this book covers, but this was still a fascinating look at a lot of the foundations of the Colonial period in the Americas and the previously overlooked major role Jewish people played.
June 2, 2018
I was excited about this book. I had read a children's book The Other 1492: Jewish Settlement in the New World, and wanted to know more. This book Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean: How a Generation of Swashbuckling Jews Carved Out an Empire in the New World in Their Quest for Treasure, Religious Freedom--and Revenge would tell me more. More ad nauseam. Like reading Illiad: who slew who became who went across the sea together under what fladgand invaded who.
At first I was excited. Early Modern Period: Inquisition and Big Business. How for a moment in history the Jewish were the stars in. The business of colonozation/occupation. Then when the shipping lanes were established, a long slow process of ferreting out as many Jewish as possible under whatever thenchose official reason was.
Excited to learn about a time time when pirates and mercenaries were commonplace elements of war. Just too boring
The things I want in a history book are here: Chronology, footnotes that are more than citations, accessible writing for an amateur historian or history hobbyist.
Enough talking by me and enough reading of this book.
At first I was excited. Early Modern Period: Inquisition and Big Business. How for a moment in history the Jewish were the stars in. The business of colonozation/occupation. Then when the shipping lanes were established, a long slow process of ferreting out as many Jewish as possible under whatever thenchose official reason was.
Excited to learn about a time time when pirates and mercenaries were commonplace elements of war. Just too boring
The things I want in a history book are here: Chronology, footnotes that are more than citations, accessible writing for an amateur historian or history hobbyist.
Enough talking by me and enough reading of this book.
October 20, 2013
If this history had been a more careful, better sourced, I think I’d have liked it better. If it were historical fiction concentrating on two or three Jewish pirates, instead of talking about people across nationalities, cultures and politics (both religious and national) I’d have liked it better. As it is, it’s a better concept than it is a book. When I was Sunday School, or possibly Hebrew School, as a student many, many years ago, a teacher said that Columbus may have been Jewish but certainly sailed with Jewish sailors. This information has been around a long time. The Age of Exploration is also one of genocides, several times over: of Indians, of Jews because it coincided with the Inquisition, and of Africans taken from their homes as slaves. According to this book, the Triangle Trade was funded by, sailed by and profited by Jews. I’m done here.
If Warner Brothers had made a swashbuckling movie about one of these pirates, starring Paul Muni or Edward G. Robinson, which in itself would have been impossible, I’d watch it. But I think I’d prefer one made by Mel Brooks. As it is, I read of no swashbuckling in what I read of this.
If Warner Brothers had made a swashbuckling movie about one of these pirates, starring Paul Muni or Edward G. Robinson, which in itself would have been impossible, I’d watch it. But I think I’d prefer one made by Mel Brooks. As it is, I read of no swashbuckling in what I read of this.
March 8, 2022
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean covers an area of Jewish history not often discussed. This book is absolutely packed with information, and in the middle of reading, I told someone it was like every single sentence was a new fact. While that was great for the informative side, it was easy to get bogged down a bit with the writing. I'm still happy to have read it, will recommend it to others, and will look into some of his sources and other similar books. It's a fascinating era, and this book is a good overview.
January 23, 2019
This is a fascinating though slightly rambling book about the attempts of Sephardic Jews to escape from and defeat the Inquisition. It's not sufficiently critical of the colonization of Turtle Island, in my view, but it sheds light on a previously obscure aspect of history, and importantly, rescues the Jewish people from being depicted as bookish urban types with not much agency. And the Jewish pirates of the title are fascinating. It also connects a lot of dots between bits of history that I thought must be connected but where I had not previously read about the links.
June 24, 2014
In the last 10 years or so many stereotypes about Jews are being broken. Most people would never suspect the Jews of having been capable of being pirates. It is only recently that people are coming to terms that Jews have been and continue to be capable of being great warriors.
The history of the Jews in Spain is well known. In 1492 they were given a choice to convert to Catholicism, leave Spain or die. Many Jews converted to Catholicism and a small number of those may have practiced their Judaism in secret. Many went over to Portugal and a good number perished at the hands of the Inquisition. In 1391 the Jews could have seen this coming as that was a year of a gigantic massacre of Jews.
Just prior to the proclamation of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabelle Columbus (maybe a Jew ) himself was giving a right and resources to explore a way to India. In this endeavor he was assisted by several well placed jews who knew that this might afford a way out for the Jews once the edict would be issued.
So Columbus traveled first to Hispaniola and then next to to other island. A good number of Jews went with him. Most cartographers and pilots were Jews as they were the onlyn ones with enough education to read a map. From this point on many Jews made their way to the new world to etch out a living for themselves. But soon the Inquisition would catch up to them their as well. As a result many Jews fled to Amsterdam to make a living and live as open Jews. Jews were often the merchants and credit lenders.
Jews were also pirates. During those turbulent times Spain was at war with Holland, England and France. These warring countries gave privateers to the right to engage in piracy against enemy countries provided the pirates shared some of the loot. Jews were eager to join in this endeavor.
In the Mediterranean Sea , A Jew, named Sinan joined up with Barbarossa the pirate known as red beard. Sinan was expelled from Spain thanks to the inquisition. So in siding with pirates he helped the Turkish empire secure many gains and a whole lot of loot. Things came to a head when the Turks controlled Tunisia and had it wrested from them by the Spanish. Sinan and Barbarossa got away.
Another famous pirate was Rabbi Samuel Palache. This rabbi’s son studied Talmud in Morrocco. Later he would move to Amsterdam and wheel and deal between the various governments all to work against Spain. So Jews were pirates and if they were not involved in Piracy they would fund the Corsair and share in the profits oft times selling back the good to the New World.
The Jews also helped the Dutch find and settle Brazil. After several battle with the Portuguese the Dutch lost it. A merchant company called the Dutch West India Company was given the right to do business and raise an army outside of government circles. With this the Jews were influenctial playing a big part in liberating Brazil from the Portuguse a second time. From their under Abraham Cohen they would gflee to other Dutch held land or into England and other properties held by her. Jamaica would become a refuge or jews and pirates alike. Taken over by the British this provided a safe haven for Jews until an Earth Quake destroyed Port Au Prince. But the Jews would still use their pirating skills to help America against Britain in the war for independence.
The history of the Jews in Spain is well known. In 1492 they were given a choice to convert to Catholicism, leave Spain or die. Many Jews converted to Catholicism and a small number of those may have practiced their Judaism in secret. Many went over to Portugal and a good number perished at the hands of the Inquisition. In 1391 the Jews could have seen this coming as that was a year of a gigantic massacre of Jews.
Just prior to the proclamation of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabelle Columbus (maybe a Jew ) himself was giving a right and resources to explore a way to India. In this endeavor he was assisted by several well placed jews who knew that this might afford a way out for the Jews once the edict would be issued.
So Columbus traveled first to Hispaniola and then next to to other island. A good number of Jews went with him. Most cartographers and pilots were Jews as they were the onlyn ones with enough education to read a map. From this point on many Jews made their way to the new world to etch out a living for themselves. But soon the Inquisition would catch up to them their as well. As a result many Jews fled to Amsterdam to make a living and live as open Jews. Jews were often the merchants and credit lenders.
Jews were also pirates. During those turbulent times Spain was at war with Holland, England and France. These warring countries gave privateers to the right to engage in piracy against enemy countries provided the pirates shared some of the loot. Jews were eager to join in this endeavor.
In the Mediterranean Sea , A Jew, named Sinan joined up with Barbarossa the pirate known as red beard. Sinan was expelled from Spain thanks to the inquisition. So in siding with pirates he helped the Turkish empire secure many gains and a whole lot of loot. Things came to a head when the Turks controlled Tunisia and had it wrested from them by the Spanish. Sinan and Barbarossa got away.
Another famous pirate was Rabbi Samuel Palache. This rabbi’s son studied Talmud in Morrocco. Later he would move to Amsterdam and wheel and deal between the various governments all to work against Spain. So Jews were pirates and if they were not involved in Piracy they would fund the Corsair and share in the profits oft times selling back the good to the New World.
The Jews also helped the Dutch find and settle Brazil. After several battle with the Portuguese the Dutch lost it. A merchant company called the Dutch West India Company was given the right to do business and raise an army outside of government circles. With this the Jews were influenctial playing a big part in liberating Brazil from the Portuguse a second time. From their under Abraham Cohen they would gflee to other Dutch held land or into England and other properties held by her. Jamaica would become a refuge or jews and pirates alike. Taken over by the British this provided a safe haven for Jews until an Earth Quake destroyed Port Au Prince. But the Jews would still use their pirating skills to help America against Britain in the war for independence.
August 18, 2019
I feel this work a disgrace to the Hebraic Spirit I was brought up in through reading of the Pentateuch and the Prophets and then having a Jewish Godfather who initiated me into Merkavah Kabbalah. I’m all for high adventure on the seas and the pirates struggles to be free then; and to overturn the tyranny of corporations (so destructive from their first inception). But this author brags of the Jewish involvment of the slave trade and merely writes it off as a cultural “way of the times then” sort of thinking and competitively expedient.
I don’t think in a few centuries we will look back at our horror at beings nabbing other holy humans and selling them to work shackled in fields separated from family the rest their lives as a horror that was merely squeamish, prurient and unfounded. So I don’t know what planet this guy is coming from. I come from a planet where the exemplar Jews to commemorate are those working from their heart chakra like the Defence Lawyer Kunstler, Robby Krieger for the Doors, or the Professor Noam Chomsky, not a bunch of slave traders?
Even Muqqadesi in the 900’s AD writing as an Arab in the Middle East speaks very derogatively of the practice of some jews doing this slave trading in his details and locations concerning such. So it is not true all had blinders on back then and just thought the slave trade a swell thing and now suddenly we are all “popped out of nowhere, willy nilly, like a jack in the box” so much more consciously and morally evolved compared to those “blind savages we all mankind were” but 3 centuries ago. I don’t subscribe to such historiography.
I don’t think in a few centuries we will look back at our horror at beings nabbing other holy humans and selling them to work shackled in fields separated from family the rest their lives as a horror that was merely squeamish, prurient and unfounded. So I don’t know what planet this guy is coming from. I come from a planet where the exemplar Jews to commemorate are those working from their heart chakra like the Defence Lawyer Kunstler, Robby Krieger for the Doors, or the Professor Noam Chomsky, not a bunch of slave traders?
Even Muqqadesi in the 900’s AD writing as an Arab in the Middle East speaks very derogatively of the practice of some jews doing this slave trading in his details and locations concerning such. So it is not true all had blinders on back then and just thought the slave trade a swell thing and now suddenly we are all “popped out of nowhere, willy nilly, like a jack in the box” so much more consciously and morally evolved compared to those “blind savages we all mankind were” but 3 centuries ago. I don’t subscribe to such historiography.
August 10, 2013
Nice book on Sefardi Jews, refugees from the inquisition, who became semi-merchants semi-privateers in the New World and whose support for the protestant countries, which did not persecute them as Jews, assisted these countries in conquest of large parts of the Americas. Perhaps a little too valorizing, I felt. Basically the story is rather sad. The persecuted of Europe assist in consolidating its power over other persecuted - the Indians and the Africans. The usual story - after all many British soldiers in India were Irish and Scots and many Indian soldiers fought to consolidate the British empire in its other colonies. Etc.
March 29, 2021
Okay, I finished this last year but I haven't logged onto Goodreads since then. I'd just like to say that there were BARELY ANY JEWISH PIRATES. If you're a historian who clearly is interested in a certain period and wants to write about it, why would you need to catfish people into reading it? It's not a quest for treasure, religious freedom, and revenge-- it's a quest to get to the end so you can finish your review for your Jewish history class. I could care less what Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire wanted to do with Jamaica, I just want to read about Kosher Swashbucklers, cause that's cool! Honestly, this book should be considered a hate crime against Jews because I sure hated reading this.
March 2, 2019
DNF - suffered through 70 pages - all this book has to offer is how to take an interesting subject and make it boring. It jumped all around and left no desire to learn what it might have had to offer.
July 11, 2015
Yo ho yo ho, a pirate's life for me...apparently even if Jewish! A number of Jews who escaped the Inquisition in Spain then Portugal, turned to piracy. Obviously, a primary motive was revenge. These survivors had often seen relations tortured horrendously then put to the auto da fe. They were fleeing an unfriendly Europe (except for Holland) for the American continent. It seems a number of the people who went with Columbus on the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria were Conversos, a phrase the author preferred to Marranos which is the one I learned growing up. But that apparently means pigs which were taboo to Jews so Conversos is a better term. Two brothers were leaders among a lot of this: the Cohen-Henriques brothers. One brother dropped the name Henriques but the other kept it so it took the author a long time to finally figure out these were brothers. One brother was trying to find the legendary mines of Columbus, which was a vein of gold somewhere in Jamaica. The book is thoroughly footnoted which includes bibliographical info as well. I'll admit I went into this a bit skeptically. After all, I had never heard of this before. But the book is convincing. It adds to the truth breaking down the myth that Jews didn't fight their disasters and went meekly to their deaths. Well, a number did, in hopes that the rest of their loved ones would be spared. Of those who escaped, most went first to Holland. I thought most of the ones there went to the east, Turkey and the environs there. And they did, including the amazing Dona Gracia Mendez. (Look through my Jewish book shelf to find an excellent book on her). However, some stayed in Holland, as risky as that was since Spain was fighting a war to get Holland back under Spanish rule. A few went to England, and apparently several turned to piracy and settling several places in the Americas. One of which was Jamaica with its fabled mines of Columbus. The motive was always to make money, sometimes in ways we wouldn't approve of today, to be merchants and bankers, which were taboo to both the Christians and Muslims. One thing I wish the author would have said a little more plainly is that one Jewish motive for accumulating wealth was to buy lives of relatives or friends still living in Spain or Portugal. Eventually, the time of piracy went by and the Jewish descendents turned to other professions. But not before some endured still more persecution in Mexico and Lima.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who still believes Jews did not resist their treatment in the Holocaust or other Jewish disasters.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who still believes Jews did not resist their treatment in the Holocaust or other Jewish disasters.
January 25, 2018
Wow was fascinating, yes, like many complained, the title is somewhat deceiving as the main focus of the book wasn't on Jewish pirates and their specific adventures, but it does tell the story of a fascinating chapter of Jewish Sephardi history during the pan of 2 centuries, following the Alhambra Decree around the inquisition time. A chapter, which I don't think many people know about. Or maybe I'm just an ignorant Ashkenazi, but still.
Who knew there was such rich Jewish history in Jamaica? We keep thinking Europe was just Ashkenazi Jews but following the expulsion Sephardi Jews went to the Caribbeans and other places in the new world, New York, but also England, and Amsterdam.
It's eye opening on many fronts. Columbus, of all people, such a problematic historical figure, gave shelter to the Jews after they had to leave Spain. But you also see Jews collaborating wit Muslim sultans, Jews partaking in the slavery trade, which, according to the book, back then included everyone and anyone. Anyone could've been kidnapped into slavery no matter what their country of origin was. And still, fascinating that while experimenting so much discrimination, trading humans still seemed legit.
It's also fascinating how pretty much everyone hated Jews and kicked them out until, of curse, they needed them, and then, once they didn't need them anymore, they kicked them out again.
But really, it seems like everyone and anyone at the 1400s-1600s was just a dick basically.
And then there *are* the few pirates, and navigators to famous discoverers, and you realize that Jews really did play a huge part in discovering (well, "discovering") and inhabiting the new world and helping to make sure overseas trade would be a success.
And then there's Columbus lost gold to consider. Was it really found by a man who was kicked out of Jamaica twice, fakes his own death, got into a lawsuit against his own brother and so on?
Many fascinating characters, both Jewish and not.
I got this book when I was in Israel, and also saw a book (fiction) called "The Jewish Pirate's Wife." It seems like the perfect follow up as it follows Samuel Phallach's wife. The man was both a Rabbi and a pirate and inspired generations. Can't wait to read a fictional tale revolving around that period.
But first, Anna Kendrick's bio.
Who knew there was such rich Jewish history in Jamaica? We keep thinking Europe was just Ashkenazi Jews but following the expulsion Sephardi Jews went to the Caribbeans and other places in the new world, New York, but also England, and Amsterdam.
It's eye opening on many fronts. Columbus, of all people, such a problematic historical figure, gave shelter to the Jews after they had to leave Spain. But you also see Jews collaborating wit Muslim sultans, Jews partaking in the slavery trade, which, according to the book, back then included everyone and anyone. Anyone could've been kidnapped into slavery no matter what their country of origin was. And still, fascinating that while experimenting so much discrimination, trading humans still seemed legit.
It's also fascinating how pretty much everyone hated Jews and kicked them out until, of curse, they needed them, and then, once they didn't need them anymore, they kicked them out again.
But really, it seems like everyone and anyone at the 1400s-1600s was just a dick basically.
And then there *are* the few pirates, and navigators to famous discoverers, and you realize that Jews really did play a huge part in discovering (well, "discovering") and inhabiting the new world and helping to make sure overseas trade would be a success.
And then there's Columbus lost gold to consider. Was it really found by a man who was kicked out of Jamaica twice, fakes his own death, got into a lawsuit against his own brother and so on?
Many fascinating characters, both Jewish and not.
I got this book when I was in Israel, and also saw a book (fiction) called "The Jewish Pirate's Wife." It seems like the perfect follow up as it follows Samuel Phallach's wife. The man was both a Rabbi and a pirate and inspired generations. Can't wait to read a fictional tale revolving around that period.
But first, Anna Kendrick's bio.
June 12, 2017
A fascinating look at little-known history, specifically the fate of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 over the next two centuries. I learned that even those who converted to Catholicism were subject to many restrictions, including a ban on settling in Spain's New World possessions. However, people in power often turned a blind eye when the Jews and conversos proved useful in establishing trading and banking networks.
When the Jews became rich and successful, however, the Inquisition would be called in and the expropriations, imprisonment, torture, and mass murder would begin. As the author writes in summation, "Iberian Jews, disguised as Christians ... pioneered the New World as explorers, conquistadors, cowboys, and pirates... transformed sugar cultivation into an agro-industry that they introduced to the Caribbean, and created the first trade network spanning the seven seas."
The book does into how Jews came to be in the short-lived Dutch possession in Brazil, in the Netherlands, in England, and the Ottoman Empire, anyplace where Spain and the Hapsburgs were hated the Jews went.
Yes, a small number were pirates, also ship captains and pilots. Mostly they were entrepeneurs, trying to survive and to help their brethren.
The book is well documented with lots of footnotes for those who want to learn more about source material, it has an excellent chronology and index as well.
When the Jews became rich and successful, however, the Inquisition would be called in and the expropriations, imprisonment, torture, and mass murder would begin. As the author writes in summation, "Iberian Jews, disguised as Christians ... pioneered the New World as explorers, conquistadors, cowboys, and pirates... transformed sugar cultivation into an agro-industry that they introduced to the Caribbean, and created the first trade network spanning the seven seas."
The book does into how Jews came to be in the short-lived Dutch possession in Brazil, in the Netherlands, in England, and the Ottoman Empire, anyplace where Spain and the Hapsburgs were hated the Jews went.
Yes, a small number were pirates, also ship captains and pilots. Mostly they were entrepeneurs, trying to survive and to help their brethren.
The book is well documented with lots of footnotes for those who want to learn more about source material, it has an excellent chronology and index as well.
November 3, 2012
Although I can almost hear the sinews of loosely connected bits of history stretching as I read this account of Jews as pirates and privateers, it was amusing and somewhat believable. After all, it's the victors that write history.... A good read for both pirates and Jews. ;)
November 30, 2017
In August 1492, Columbus left Spain on his historic voyage to the New World. The same day, Jews were required to leave Spain forever, or risk imprisonment and confiscation of property. While these two watershed events -- the dawn of the Age of Discovery and the beginning of the Inquisition -- seem somewhat unrelated, they form the thematic backbone of Jewish Pirates of the Carinbean In it, Edward Kritzler provides an excellent analysis of how Sephardic Jews, expelled from Spain, expanded over the newly emerging Atlantic World as merchants, traders, and yes pirates.
Overall I enjoyed it, though the book is a bit sprawling as Kritzler sways back and forth from Amsterdam to Iberia to Brazil to Jamaica. At times the big cast of characters gets a bit confusing. No doubt this is in part because a lot of the Jews, especially those had been forced to adopt Catholicism, adopted very similar names such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David etc... once they escaped from the Inquisition. So I'd recommend reading it somewhat quickly so that you don't lose track of who all the people are.
Overall I enjoyed it, though the book is a bit sprawling as Kritzler sways back and forth from Amsterdam to Iberia to Brazil to Jamaica. At times the big cast of characters gets a bit confusing. No doubt this is in part because a lot of the Jews, especially those had been forced to adopt Catholicism, adopted very similar names such as Abraham, Isaac, Moses, David etc... once they escaped from the Inquisition. So I'd recommend reading it somewhat quickly so that you don't lose track of who all the people are.
January 26, 2024
Stuck with it for 7 chapters, then I skipped to the epilogue.
There’s not a lot of Jewish pirates.
There are some interesting stories of how the Sephardic Jews of Europe made inroads in the New World. And that was something I was completely unfamiliar with.
But overall, I’m still not sure of the author’s premise: that Columbus was secretly Jewish? That he truly intended for Jamaica to be a haven for Jews in the New World? Or is it all about his legendary goldmine somewhere? These are the things he starts and finishes with. But there is much in between that is worth knowing, but doesn’t seem germane to these premises.
There’s not a lot of Jewish pirates.
There are some interesting stories of how the Sephardic Jews of Europe made inroads in the New World. And that was something I was completely unfamiliar with.
But overall, I’m still not sure of the author’s premise: that Columbus was secretly Jewish? That he truly intended for Jamaica to be a haven for Jews in the New World? Or is it all about his legendary goldmine somewhere? These are the things he starts and finishes with. But there is much in between that is worth knowing, but doesn’t seem germane to these premises.
January 4, 2025
What a fun book! Definitely some issues with the writing — a bit of confusion in a couple chapters. But there are several stories here. 1. A story of the Jewish people after they were kicked out of England, Spain and Portugal and driven to look for a safe place to live in the New World. 2. A story of piracy and its development in the Caribbean and coasts of South America and Mexico. And 3. A story of a “lost gold mine” of Columbus with details of its location - a treasure hunt if you will. I enjoyed this book even with its flaws. Recommend if it’s your interest.
June 1, 2023
Very interesting topic, although at times I lost track of the different pirates and the various plots and machinations going on between the rulers of Spain, England, Portugal, and the Netherlands. The book shows how far the reach of the Inquisition was, and how resourceful the Jews it targeted had to be to stay ahead of it. I enjoyed the author's excitement at finding a document no one had ever noticed before--I love research stories.
September 2, 2020
Although the reading is thick and dry, I learned a lot about Jewish trade and migration in that particular time period. I was not so secretly hoping for more actual Jewish pirates but this fleshed out some of the details of what life was like during such a critical in history juncture for Jews, all of which I found very interesting.
January 1, 2020
Very interesting topic. Poorly organized. I couldn't get a sense of a timeline. I got confused with names. Good fact nuggets interspersed. Couldn't keep reading it into the new year. Time to cut my losses.
March 3, 2019
Fascinating. It’s like history, but the story between the lines.
It was a bit tough slogging through, but very interesting.
It was a bit tough slogging through, but very interesting.
February 16, 2021
Very interesting historical book discussing how Spain, by exiling the Jews and starting the inquisition just when Columbus started his voyages, unwittingly sowed the seeds of piracy that was a factor in bringing down their empire. Fascinating topic, unfortunately, a mediocre read.
Historians will love it.
Historians will love it.
April 15, 2018
I really wanted to like this book. And, to a certain degree, I did. But I didn't enjoy it. It's interesting, if not entertaining, but it's not a terrifically written assessment of history.
My first problem is the title. You pick up a book called Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean and immediately imagine stories of swashbuckling rogues plundering the Spanish Main, swilling rum, and ravaging wenches (or, alternatively, an hysterical and stereotype-laden Mel Brooks movie). Instead, you get the story of The Jewish diaspora in the New World during the Age of Discovery and their (sometime tenuous) links to piracy. Not an uninteresting topic, but far more dry than that tantalizing title promises. I was willing to forgive this fault, at first. After all, it's the publisher that determines the title and it's enough of a hook to get you to take a look at the book. But it's a bit deceitful.
While I strained not to judge the book based on the publisher's poor choice of misleading title, I noticed the second problem. This book is poorly sourced. The author relies primarily on two questionable bases: his own connections between other works, often noting that traditional historians have gotten something 'wrong', which while possible and maybe even likely, isn't well-supported in the evidence he presents, and his own research, for which copies of primary documents are on his website. This alone raises a few red flags for anyone accustomed to historical research, but given the extremely specific nature of this book, it's unsurprising that the research available wouldn't be extensive. But then he sources a geocities.com webpage and what he describes as a quasi-Wiki Jewish genealogy/heritage site.
This lack of well-defined research wouldn't be much of a problem for most history books attempting to highlight an aspect of history the author feels is under-reported or undervalued. The flaw here is that most of the claims seem tenuous at best. He makes claims that he admits are against the conventional wisdom, provides a very compelling and interesting alternative story, and then fails to provide hard evidence. While it no doubt makes for some intriguing reading, it doesn't really pass the smell test for historical research. The ancient alien nonsense may be funny and entertaining, but that doesn't make it true or the people that actually believe it any less pitiable.
There are two additional, less troublesome, concerns with this book. First, he admits his bias only in the epilogue. After 257 pages, we learn the author undertook this research after being funded by a descendant of the main family on which this book focuses. I wouldn't normally have a problem with this, as independent research is the only alternative to academia in such a narrow subject field, but only being told at the end, rather than the beginning, bothers me. Admit your bias up front, explain why you're eager to make these claims, and I'll be more trusting. Instead, all those aforementioned tenuous claims seem even less likely once I find out the real basis behind this book.
The last concern is the way this book is laid out. The author throws dates out constantly, which is fine in a history book, but he fails to follow a strong chronological order. To some extent this is excusable, as he focuses on different colonies and nations in different chapters, but he jumps back and forth a little too much to make this book educational. He tells a good story, but the threads of history get a little too tangled to make it easy to learn.
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean had a lot of potential. And despite the misleading title, still could've been a four and maybe even five star book for me. But the problems it has just drag it down. I recommend it for anyone looking to get a different perspective on the Age of Discovery, one told from the less common non-Christian view, but don't expect to learn much and take the author's conclusions with a grain of salt. He may tell a good story, but this isn't as much of a history book as an interesting theory told well.
My first problem is the title. You pick up a book called Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean and immediately imagine stories of swashbuckling rogues plundering the Spanish Main, swilling rum, and ravaging wenches (or, alternatively, an hysterical and stereotype-laden Mel Brooks movie). Instead, you get the story of The Jewish diaspora in the New World during the Age of Discovery and their (sometime tenuous) links to piracy. Not an uninteresting topic, but far more dry than that tantalizing title promises. I was willing to forgive this fault, at first. After all, it's the publisher that determines the title and it's enough of a hook to get you to take a look at the book. But it's a bit deceitful.
While I strained not to judge the book based on the publisher's poor choice of misleading title, I noticed the second problem. This book is poorly sourced. The author relies primarily on two questionable bases: his own connections between other works, often noting that traditional historians have gotten something 'wrong', which while possible and maybe even likely, isn't well-supported in the evidence he presents, and his own research, for which copies of primary documents are on his website. This alone raises a few red flags for anyone accustomed to historical research, but given the extremely specific nature of this book, it's unsurprising that the research available wouldn't be extensive. But then he sources a geocities.com webpage and what he describes as a quasi-Wiki Jewish genealogy/heritage site.
This lack of well-defined research wouldn't be much of a problem for most history books attempting to highlight an aspect of history the author feels is under-reported or undervalued. The flaw here is that most of the claims seem tenuous at best. He makes claims that he admits are against the conventional wisdom, provides a very compelling and interesting alternative story, and then fails to provide hard evidence. While it no doubt makes for some intriguing reading, it doesn't really pass the smell test for historical research. The ancient alien nonsense may be funny and entertaining, but that doesn't make it true or the people that actually believe it any less pitiable.
There are two additional, less troublesome, concerns with this book. First, he admits his bias only in the epilogue. After 257 pages, we learn the author undertook this research after being funded by a descendant of the main family on which this book focuses. I wouldn't normally have a problem with this, as independent research is the only alternative to academia in such a narrow subject field, but only being told at the end, rather than the beginning, bothers me. Admit your bias up front, explain why you're eager to make these claims, and I'll be more trusting. Instead, all those aforementioned tenuous claims seem even less likely once I find out the real basis behind this book.
The last concern is the way this book is laid out. The author throws dates out constantly, which is fine in a history book, but he fails to follow a strong chronological order. To some extent this is excusable, as he focuses on different colonies and nations in different chapters, but he jumps back and forth a little too much to make this book educational. He tells a good story, but the threads of history get a little too tangled to make it easy to learn.
Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean had a lot of potential. And despite the misleading title, still could've been a four and maybe even five star book for me. But the problems it has just drag it down. I recommend it for anyone looking to get a different perspective on the Age of Discovery, one told from the less common non-Christian view, but don't expect to learn much and take the author's conclusions with a grain of salt. He may tell a good story, but this isn't as much of a history book as an interesting theory told well.
March 22, 2017
Though it was hard to follow the characters and events happening concurrently but not written side by side, it was a fascinating book. Incredible, unknown history! It would have been helpful to realize there was a Chronology at the end of the book before I started. Still, a worthwhile read.
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