Islamist violence stings Zionistic-Christian community; Muslim co-worker shoots "Messianic Jewish" mentor among 31-shot in SoCal "sudden jihad" massacre

 Syed Farook and Pakistani bride, Tashfeen Malik 

Pakistanis burn Israeli & American flags (file photo)

"What begins against the Jews never ends with just the Jews."

San Bernadino, California "instant jihadist" attackers, Syed Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, were killed in a gun battle with police in San Bernardino after their mass shooting at a conference center with some of his work-mates. Some neighbors considered the ethnic Pakistani couple as normal, though another noticed an odd number of package delivers and Muslim visitors working in their garage. She reportedly said that fear of being called "racist" inhibited her from reporting her suspicions to authorities.

Police said 14 people were killed and 21 were wounded after the married couple opened fire at the Inland Regional Center on Wednesday, December 2nd.

Among the casualties was Farook's colleague, Nicholas Thalasinos, 52, a Messianic Jew who reportedly clashed with Farook over Islam two weeks ago.

Messianics, Jennifer & Nicholas Thalasinos

Read more in the Daily Mail: 

Nicholas, a fervent Zionist (who would wear tzitzit, and a tie-clip with the Star of David) would defend Israel against jihadist antagonists on Facebook. He corresponded with an Israeli friend of JooTube, Bat-Zion Susskind telling her: "As a gentile who loves HaShem, I know my place is to support Israel and the Jewish people." 

Ms. Susskind writes: "Nicholas fought against those who were proselytizing and making every effort to convince Jews that theirs is the right way! Nicholas was an amazing human being who supported Israel UNCONDITIONALLY, a Pro-Zionist, a sincere and honest man without any agenda who defended Israel and the Jewish people at any given moment."

Thalasinos' last public Facebook post, written just hours before the shooting, mentioned receiving a threatening message related to Israel. The threat included the words "You will die soon." In the post he defended Israel, and emphasized his pride at being labeled a Jew.  

His friend, Kuuleme Stephens said that though they would debate Islam and Israel, Thalasinos did not believe his co-worker, Syed Farook, would ever turn violent. FBI agents discovered a huge arsenal – including nearly 5,000 rounds of ammunition, a dozen pipe bombs and hundreds of tools for making IEDs at the couple’s home. It also emerged that Farook was in touch by phone and through social media with more than one international terrorism subject.   

Messianic Jews are Christians who adopt Jewish religious practices, but maintain belief in the Trinity and Jesus/Yeshua as Moshiach. 

Michael Medved responded to JewTube's question at the Orthodox Union West Coast Conference this week- regarding Islamic anti-Semitism as a factor in Farook's killing his work trainer, Thalasinos- and Jewish demoninations' need to address Islamic anti-Semitism. 



For the past number of years, the Zionistic Christian group, Proclaiming Justice Among the Nations, hosts a joint Jewish/Christian event at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville. Topics include showing their devotion to Israel and opposing anti-Semitism. The meetings attract Christians, Jews, and Messianic-Jews of varying degrees.

Laurie Cardoza-Moore promotes husband Stan's documentary

At the 2014 premiere of the Zionist documentary "Israel Indivisible" directed by Stan Moore, PJTN chief Laurie Cardoza-Moore paid tribute to the late Rabbi Gerald Meister- and welcomed author and radio host Michael Medved to address the audience.



Also in this video playlist are Rabbi Ken Spero of JerusalemU and Judean terror-survivor and author Mayor David Rubin.

In March of 2015, PJTN's Laurie Cardoza-Moore invited Amb. John Bolton to address the Obama vs Netanyahu clash over Iran nuclear weaponizing policy.
 

PJTN member Mr. John Golden and Israeli publisher of "Holy Lands," magazine Izhak Shani react to the Israeli Tourism Board's presentation of Christian Israel history and Tourism Ministry's MK Uzi Landau's inspiring farewell speech. 

"Anti-Zionism is racism!" Academics fight leftist/philo-Arab revisionists 68-years after UN ratified Jewish State in Palestine

On Nov 29, 1947 the U.N. ratified Resolution 181 the Plan to Partition Palestine, legitimizing a Jewish (and Arab) state in Palestine. Israeli-born, Prof. Judea Pearl considers this Resolution 181, "the most pivotal event in Jewish history since the destruction of the Second (King Solomon's) Temple."


(video: Jewish United Fund)

Judea and Mrs. Ruth Pearl at Amer Jewish Univ performance

The guest of Mrs. Ruth Pearl, Father Alexei Smith, of the Southern California Ecumenical Council believes that as Judaism is at the root of Christianity, the Catholic Church supports Israel as the Jewish homeland.



At Beth Jacob Congregation this month, Dr. Pearl reiterated  about his concern in his Op/Eds in the Jewish Journal  about the B.D.S. (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement attempting to limit the Univ of Calif's terms opposing anti-Semitism to exempt anti-Zionism. Dr. Pearl declared that to deny of the central Jewish tenet of Zionism (sovereignty back in the Jewish homeland) is bigoted racism. He also appealed for UCLA community intervention against "Ziono-phobia" in the definition and climate on campus. 


"The UC’s new dilemma: to name or not to name"

 by Judea Pearl, November 3, 2015, Jewish Journal

As I have argued previously in these pages, among the phobias that currently drive campus racism, Zionophobia trumps anti-Semitism, and therefore, treating anti-Zionism as the lesser of the two evils gives racist forces the legitimacy to continue their assaults unabated, under the cover of a “political debate,” exempt from norms of discourse that protect other campus groups from similar attacks. I believe not only UCLA, but also the University of California Regents, must explicitly name “anti-Zionism” as a major contributor to campus intolerance, and a major threat to the academic climate. ... 

The UC Regents know that Zionophobia is the main source of campus intolerance and hostility, and yet the word “Zionism” — a people’s quest for self determination — has never been identified as a moral imperative by those in charge of campus climate. You can’t cure a problem unless you name it! The effectiveness of any recommendation or report summing up the regents’ deliberations hinges upon one simple word: Zionism. 

Dr. Richard Cravatts, president of Scholars for Peace in the Middle-East, confronts this issue on an ongoing basis and spoke with JewTube.Info last semester about the movement hijacking academia.

Counter-terror in vogue. But does Israeli TV's "Fouda" help or hurt our image?

Lior Raz, co-creator and star of Israeli TV's "Fouda" action-drama series

With the Paris jihadist attacks in popular consciousness, more attention may be paid to the final Israel Film Festival  screenings of the controversial Israeli TV-show "Fouda," a "24"-like thriller TV series depicting the cat and mouse between Palestinian terrorists and Israeli undercover counter-terror police.


"Fouda" actor/co-producer, Lior Raz answers Israel Film Fest
 audience questions post-screening in Beverly Hills

Candid interview with "Fouda" Israeli TV action producer and star, Lior Raz, on the risk of exposing Israel's secret police to an enemy Arab/Palestinian culture.



Lior Raz, star and co-creator of the Israeli TV series "Fouda" spoke with the audience following his premiere screening at the Israel Film Festival in Beverly Hills.



Several episodes screen together on Tuesday and Wednesday Nov 17-18 at the Israel Film Festival in the San Fernando Valley. Please refer to the Israel Film Festival website for locations and schedules.

French attacks cast Israel's struggle in a new light- depicted at Israel Film Festival

Lior Raz, co-creator and star of Israeli TV's "Fouda" action-drama series

Israel Film Festival selections depict a society coping with the Islamist enemy which France has blamed on Israel, but now must confront herself. 

Filmmakers of pictures to be screened in the final week of the 29th Israel Film Festival, "Hagiga- History of Israeli Cinema," "Sabena Hijacking: My Story" and episodes from the controversial, Palestinian-depicting, Israeli TV series "Fouda" speak at their screenings the Israel Film Festival in Beverly Hills and San Fernando Valley, California.

Nati Dinnar, producer "Sabena Hijacking: My Story" tells the story of the 1972 Sabena Airline hijacked en route to Tel Aviv, whose rescue became seminal in the careers of Israeli Defense personnel, who became politicians. Dinnar states that the story has become textbook handling in the profession of hostage negotiations throughout the world.


  The grandson of Capt. Reginald Levi, the real-life pilot depicted in docu-drama, "Sabena Hijacking: My Story" reveals how the event depicted affected their lives. Yaron Lipschitz had not yet seen the movie at the time he spoke with our camera. "Sabena" screens Saturday Nov 14th at 5pm.



"Fouda" actor/co-producer, Lior Raz answers Israel Film Fest
 audience questions post-screening in Beverly Hills

Candid interview with "Fouda" Israeli TV action producer and star, Lior Raz, on the risk of exposing Israel's secret police to an enemy Arab/Palestinian culture.




Arik Bernstein, producer of "Hagiga- History of Israeli Cinema" which shows the attempt of Holocaust survivors to re-establish careers of artistic film production in the fledgling, desert country- and how it evolves. Created as a documentary series for IBA Channel 1, several episodes screen together on Sunday and Monday at the Israel Film Festival in the Valley.



Arik Bernstein answers audience questions at the series episodes screening in Hollywood. "Hagiga" will screen on Sunday and Monday, Nov 15-16 in the Valley.





Please refer to the Israel Film Festival website for locations and schedules.

Jewish-American veteran families who fought tyranny carry forward - some from Israel

Members of the Jewish War Veterans of America participate in Veterans Day parades across America. JWV Posts from Los Angeles participate in an annual, Veterans Day Parade ride- with veterans of WWII on the first floor of their double-decker bus. I accompanied World War II veterans Stan Salmore; Jack Pathman; Harris Frischer, and Paul Cohen last year. Mr. Frischer tells of his incarceration by the Nazis.

Major Stanley Rowen

Sgt. Cmdr. Zachary Taylor

Mrs. Allyson Rowen Taylor continues her family's fight against tyranny. Her father, Distinguished Flying-Cross recipient, Major Stanley Rowen served in the US Air Force effort since World War II. In order to fly within the anti-semitic U.S.A.F., Stanley he changed his name and removed his religion from his dog tags- which was consequently omitted from his military tombstone.

Allyson's first-born son, Zachary had already enlisted in the I.D.F. at the time of this interview at the Los Angeles National Cemetery in 2010- and served as a Sergeant Commander in Israel's Givati Brigade- also serving in Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. 


Comments were recorded at the Veterans' National Cemetery in Los Angeles on the day of Israel's blockage of the Mavi Marmara incursion in May, 2010. The issue has reemerged in the news this week - as part of the IslamoNazi movement which grows through the vilifying of Jews through the Jewish state. 

Turks torture Israeli who boarded the Mavi Marmara

"ICC prosecutor ordered again to consider reopening Mavi Marmara case" Jewish Telegraphic Agency November 9, 2015

The International Criminal Court again has ordered a prosecutor to reconsider her decision not to investigate war crimes allegations against Israel in the Mavi Marmara flotilla case. A panel of ICC judges in a 3-2 vote Friday dismissed an appeal by ICC prosecutor Fatou Bensouda that she not reopen the case as requested by a different panel in July. 

The assassination of Rav Meir Kahane- al-Qaeda's first terror attack on US soil- Lessons on 30th anniversary

Rabbi Meir Kahane is known as a stalwart defender of the safety of the Jewish people's safety. But he was also a great religious scholar, writer, and leader many consider the author of "Why Be Jewish" and several other books a tzaddik and prophet.

J.D.L. members aid Rabbi Meir Kahane, shot by NY-area Islamist, Nosair
at NYC East-Side Marriott, 20-min til ambulance. (Photo: Shannon Taylor)

Omar Abdel-Rahman ("The Blind Sheikh") led Gamaa Islamiya terror group
inciting El Sayyid Nosair to murder Rabbi Kahane, bombing NYC's W.T.C.,
which killed 6 people, and plotting to blow up the U.N. and NYC landmarks

This National Geographic documentary illustrates the connection between the murderers of Rav Kahane, the first Al Qaeda terror act on American soil, and the 1993 World Trade Center bombing - which it is alleged could have been averted had the FBI & NYPD been able to better investigate the radical materials of El Sayid Nosair, convicted for assassinating Rav Kahane November 5th, 1990.


As Debbie Schlussel wrote:

Nosair’s trial was a travesty of epic proportions. The moronic O.J. Simpson-style jury acquitted Nosair (defended by Marxist Jewish self-hater William Kunstler) of murder charges, even though it was clear that he planned the murder of Rabbi Kahane and meticulously carried it out in front of a room full of witnesses. Thankfully, the courageous judge

overseeing the case, Judge Alvin Schlesinger, said the jury’s acquittal “was against the overwhelming weight of evidence and was devoid of common sense and logic,” and he sentenced Nosair to the maximum number of years possible, under the charges for which he was convicted–seven to 22 years."

Though acquitted of Kahane’s murder, three years later, while in prison, Nosair was also implicated in the first World Trade Center bombings that killed six and injured over a thousand others, through his association with those involved in the attack. 

Nosair’s cousin, Ibrahim A. El-Gabrowny, 45, received 57 years for the conspiracy and other charges, including possession of bogus passports and visas intended to get Nosair out of the country following a jailbreak. Seven other defendants received prison terms of 25 to 35 years for planning what prosecutors called a “war of urban terrorism” aimed at altering US policy in the Middle East.  (Source: Times of Israel, Feb '17).

Eyewitness to Nosair's assassination of Rabbi Kahane, former J.D.L. member, Shannon Taylor, recounts the murder, the trial, and it's ramifications - only days after the Pittsburgh Etz Chaim/ Tree of Life synagogue massacre by Robert Bowers (ironically professed to have been motivated by Jews' support for H.I.A.S. (Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society) resettling of Muslim immigrants in Pennsylvania and other cities across the United States).

Rabbi Kahane had intended to bring his message to Los Angeles' Beth Jacob Synagogue after his Marriott appearance.  If the congregational rabbi would not honor some congregants request for him to speak inside the sanctuary, Rabbi Kahane declared that he would speak outside on the street.

Rabbi Moshe Parry appeared in 2013 outside Beth Jacob Synagogue to honor Rabbi Kahane's ideology- published below.

"Just Who Stole Eretz Yisrael?" - "G-d is Creator of the Universe and Owner and Master of the earth and all that it contains: "The Earth is the L-rd's, and the fullness thereof" (Ps. 24:1). He gave Eretz Yisrael to the Jewish People as their land, to enable them to fulfill their mission of building a state and society in accordance with the laws and foundations of the Holy Torah: "He gave them the lands of nations; they inherited people's toils, that they might keep His statutes and observe His laws" (Ps. 105:44-45). As far as Eretz Yisrael, no apologies or justifications are necessary. The Jewish People came to the land where the seven nations dwelled and took it from them by decree of the Owner, G-d. G-d uprooted the nations who dwelled there and brought in His chosen people, Israel, because the land is His and does not belong to those who lived there as occupants.

A Jew must realize that everything -- the world, punishment, even he himself -- is under G-d's exclusive domain".

Nosair's son, Zak has changed his last name to Ebrahim and has written a book denouncing his father's Islamic terrorism.

My dad, the terrorist: 1993 WTC jihadist’s son reveals painful past
by Susannah Cahalan, New York Post, August 31, 2014.

“The Terrorist’s Son: A Story of Choice,” which he wrote in part, he explains, to show that not all Muslims are irredeemable supporters of extremist ideology.

Defending the Jewish homeland requires a communal effort- shows Friends of the IDF (F.I.D.F.) fundraiser in Los Angeles

Haim Saban poses with IDF soldiers at fundraiser

Friends of the IDF, Western Region returned to Beverly Hills to fundraise $31 million by showing the impressive work they do with and for IDF soldiers, current and veterans.

As filming was prohibited at this year's ceremony (which featured a performance by The Beach Boys, curated by producer David Foster) at last year's ceremony, US Army Master Sergeant Select Greg Grutter of "Heroes to Heroes" demonstrated an example of the Israeli-soldier-support services that philanthropists Haim Saban and Leo David advocate for.

 

Leo David donated $1 million to Friends of Israel Defense Forces

F.I.D.F. brings actual soldiers, male and female, to meet Americans and share their perspectives as free-societies trying to defending ourselves from the Islamist revolution.

JewTube has chronicled some of the entertainment which attracts donors to the frequently, sold-out fund-raiser.
Enjoy the entertainment from our previous FIDF coverage.

F.I.D.F. L.A. 2011 Gala: Barbara Streisand, Antonio Banderas, David Foster, Noa Tishby, Leo David, David Foster, Michael Smith, Haim Saban 2011

Diverse Friends of the I.D.F. in L.A. convincingly compensate for Stevie Wonder's cancelled performance 2012

Helen Mirren & Aaron Sorkin: Don't boycott, but engage Israeli media-creators;' Essential details on Israel Film Fest / American Film Market

Aaron Sorkin and Dame Helen Mirren accept honors at Israel Film Festival

The 29th Israel Film Festival honored actress, Dame Helen Mirren, ("Woman of Gold") and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin ("Steve Jobs") at its premiere held Wednesday night at the Saban Theater in Beverly Hills. 

David Caspi writes, in "Helen Mirren, Aaron Sorkin Honored at L.A.'s Israel Film Festival" in the Hollywood Reporter:

Aaron Sorkin said, "My friends who are screenwriters tell me that successfully pitching a movie that takes place in the Middle East is somewhere between very difficult and impossible. The reaction from the studios usually is 'that's a good story but who right now wants to see a movie set in that part of the world?' - I do. I want to see a lot of them". 

Helen Mirren, Festival Director Meir Fenigstein, and Diane Lane (Mirren's co-star in "Trumbo") presented her award

Ms. Mirren recounted that starred in the remake of the great Israeli film "The Debt" adding "I'm so impressed by the incredible Israeli film industry and very excited to see the films that are showing here. I love Israel; I think it's a great country. I think that through all the difficulties and all the pain that Israel has suffered in the past and will in the future, the great thing that Israel has is Israelis and they will guide it through."  

Earlier this year, the actress starred in The Weinstein Company’s "Woman in Gold" as Maria Altmann, the Austrian-American Jewish woman who successfully reclaimed artist Gustav Klimt’s art owned by her family and confiscated during the Nazi occupation of Austria in WWII. 

Randol Schoenberg (2nd from left) won "Woman of Gold" for Maria Altmann; Israeli Consul Gen. David Siegel (far-right)

E. Randol Schoenberg, the film's depicted attorney told JewTube, "Woman of Gold is being shown at the Israel Festival. I'll be at one showing. It already opened in April and it's the most successful independent film of the year, so far. They wanted to include it in the Festival and I'm very happy. We have Helen Mirren here today, so it's a real celebration of the movie, I think."

The Times of Israel's Raoul Wootliff says the Academy Award winner described the campaign to boycott Israel through cutting off cultural ties as “a really bad idea.”
“The people who are the most inspiring in Israel tend to be from the cultural community. The writers, the directors, the poets, the musicians, they are truly extraordinary people doing amazing work, peace-giving work, working towards peace all the time,” she said. “To cut them off is the craziest idea, I don’t agree with it at all.”

Ms. Mirren said she agreed with prominent British figures who signed an open letter, published in The Guardian last week, that endorsed cultural engagement with Israel rather than a cultural boycott, as a way to promote peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

David Caspi continues:

Wednesday’s event capped off with the U.S. premiere

Yuval Delshad, Persian-Israeli Director of "Baba Joon"

of director Yuval Delshad’s Baba Joon, Israel’s official Oscar submission for the Best Foreign-Language Film category this year. Other notable films set to be screened during the festival include Academy Award nominated live-action short Aya and Israeli TV powerhouse Keshet Broadcasting’s docu-drama Sabena Hijacking – My Version. 

'Baba Joon' co-stars Viss Elliot Safavi and David Diaan

Several cast-members of the Israeli Ophir (Oscar) Award-winner, Baba Joon, joined director, Yuval Delshad on the red carpet for the Saban premiere on Wednesday.
In her article,"Israel Film Festival brings award winners 'Baba Joon,' 'Censored Voices' to L.A.," Susan King of the L.A. Times elaborates: 

More than 80% of the programming is either Ophir nominees — the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars — or winners such as "Censored Voices," which took the top documentary prize.

"It's a little bit controversial but powerful," said Fenigsten. "It's about the Six-Day War — things nobody knows happened."  

Other highlights of the festival include: 
Amir Wolf's "Fire Birds," a drama about a police detective who is assigned a case of a murdered Holocaust survivor.

Oded Raz's "Galis: The Journey to Astra," a sci-fi adventure based on a popular Israel miniseries.

Elad Keidan's "Afterthought," an existential comedy that earned the top prize at the Haifa Film Festival. "Fauda," a popular 2015 TV series that examines both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Many of the directors, including Yuval Delshad, Wolf and Keidan, as well as producers and actors, will also be on hand after the screenings to participate in Q&A's.

The Israel Film Festival will run its first week at the new Ahrya Fine Arts Cinema off La Cienega Blvd on Wilshire; through Thurs, 5 Nov (see parking info below). 

The Festival then moves to West L.A.'s Laemmle Royal Cinema from Thurs 5 Nov through Thurs 12 Nov. 

On the 12th, the Festival will move to the San Fernando Valley at the Laemmle Town Center in Encino. 

It also will simultaneously run in North Hollywood at Laemmle NoHo Cinema from Saturday 14 through Thurs 19 November. See Israel Film Festival website for times and tickets.

Also, The Israel Film Festival will sponsor a booth at the American Film Market in cooperation with the various Israel Film Funds, and will host exclusive industry events. This is a new initiative to position the Israel Film community as part of the world-wide market place, a move that will allow maximum exposure, networking and business & investment opportunities between buyers and sellers from the Israeli and International Film & Television industries. 

Exhibition Space at the AFM is located on: 5th Floor Atrium, Code 5L Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel 1700 Ocean Avenue, Santa Monica 

Please note, both of the parking lots for the Beverly Hills Ahrya Fine Arts Cinema are located near Gregory Way, a walk of approximately 1/4 mile from the theater, so please allow yourself 10-15 minutes extra walking time after you park.
Lot A)  321 S. La Cienega Blvd. 310-285-2467
First 2 hours FREE, then $1 per 1/2 hour. Gate closes at 11pm.

Lot B)  La Cienega Tennis Center
325 S. La Cienega Blvd.  (Between Gregory and Olympic Blvd) 310-652-7555
First 2 hours FREE, then $3 per hour,
There is only limited street parking around the theater. Limited-mobility attendees might consider getting dropped-off adjacent to the Cinema at Ruby's Restaurant, enabling the driver then drive down towards Gregory Way and walk back. 

Where does G-d bequeath the Land of Israel to the Jewish People- and who shall dwell there? Rabbi Moshe Parry at UCLA

In this shiur to UCLA club, Torah Jews for Israel, Rabbi Moshe Parry references Jewish scripture in which the Almighty bequeathed the Land of Israel unto the Jewish Nation.

(Playlist menu drops down from upper-left. Playlist can advance via buttons on lower left).

Rabbi Moshe Parry teaches UCLA's Torah Jews for Israel club at Hillel

What's more, Rabbi Parry addresses Maimonides' opinions on Jews' converting to avoid death - and which people are and are not permitted to live in Israel. He also reminds us that Jewish people are obligated to live in Eretz Yisrael and observe Torah mitzvahs. Recorded by JewTube at UCLA Hillel Oct 26, 2015. 

Do Jewish Lives Matter? Old City Jerusalem Rabbi Ben Packer addresses renewed Arab intifada and accomplice libels in the press

Rabbi Ben Packer of Jerusalem Heritage House in the Old City addresses L.A.

Rabbi Ben Packer of the Jerusalem Heritage House in the Old City addresses the issue of the renewed intifada from Abbas-incited Muslim youth resulting from libels about Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount/ Al-Aqsa Mosque.



Appearance at the Jewish Activity Center of L.A. (formerly Social Dashboard, led by Aryeh Rifkin). October 25, 2015 in Los Angeles.

How US administration's pro-Islamist and anti-Israeli policies endanger world - Michele Bachmann, Ben Shapiro, & Larry Elder at PolitiCon

Rep. Michele Bachmann slams Obama's pro-Islamism against Israel

Larry Marino, morning news anchor,
KRLA 870 LA

"Culture & Politics" panelists Larry Elder, Barak Lurie, and Ben Shapiro

Liberal Israeli-American, Yosi Sergant and Zionistic Hispanic, Anna Veneto
continue their argument after PolitCon concludes down into the parking lot

Scholars contend Columbus a Marrano Jew who discovered Americas on Zionist-funded, rescue-mission. 9 US cities replace Columbus Day with "Indigenous Peoples' Day"

Cristobal Colon bids son farewell to embark on 1492 journey

For too long, scholars have ignored Columbus' grand passion: the quest to liberate Jerusalem from Muslim occupation and return religiously-oppressed Jews to their homeland.

In Was Columbus secretly a Jew? by Charles Garcia, (CNN, May 24, 2012), Charles Garcia presents the case argued by a number of Spanish scholars that Columbus was a Marrano, whose survival depended upon the suppression of all evidence of his Jewish background in face of the brutal, systematic ethnic cleansing. 

Charles Garcia: During Columbus' lifetime, Jews became the target of religious persecution

Columbus was actually a Marrano, or a Jew who only feigned to be a Catholic.

Columbus' voyage was motivated by a desire to find a safe haven for Jews

In Columbus' day, Jews widely believed that Jerusalem had to be liberated and the Temple rebuilt for the Messiah to come.

The day he set forth was the very day that Jews were, by law, given the choice of converting, leaving Spain, or being killed.

Tens of thousands of Marranos were tortured by the Spanish Inquisition. They were pressured to offer names of friends and family members, who were ultimately paraded in front of crowds, tied to stakes and burned alive. Their land and personal possessions were then divied up by the church and crown.
In Simon Weisenthal's book, "Sails of Hope," he argues that Columbus' voyage was motivated by a desire to find a safe haven for the Jews in light of their expulsion from Spain. 

Likewise, Carol Delaney, a cultural anthropologist at Stanford University, concludes that Columbus was a deeply religious man whose purpose was to sail to Asia to obtain gold in order to finance a crusade to take back Jerusalem and rebuild the Jews' holy Temple. 

Columbus' voyage was not, as is commonly believed, funded by the deep pockets of Queen Isabella, but rather by two Jewish Conversos and another prominent Jew. Louis de Santangel and Gabriel Sanchez advanced an interest free loan of 17,000 ducats from their own pockets to help pay for the voyage, as did Don Isaac Abrabanel, rabbi and Jewish statesman.  Indeed, the first two letters Columbus sent back from his journey were not to Ferdinand and Isabella, but to Santangel and Sanchez, thanking them for their support and telling them what he had found.  

Read more:

(Video: Columbus and The Jews" Spielberg Archive, Hebrew University, Jerusalem)

Might this recognition be one reason why "9 cities abolish Columbus Day in favor of Indigenous Peoples’ Day?" From RT (Russia Today) 10 Oct 2015

Nine cities in states across the US have pressed for resolutions to recognize October 12 as Indigenous Peoples’ Day rather than Columbus Day. Eight of those cities passed resolutions in the last two months and three adopted a resolution just this week.  

In New York this past weekend, the Redhawk Native American Arts Council brought together over 500 indigenous American artists, educators, singers and dancers from 75 different nations on Randall’s Island in New York for a Native American Festival and pow-wow. It is the first pow-wow to be held in Manhattan.

Indigenous Peoples Day Celebration http://t.co/qP0fFwBSJB pic.twitter.com/IN20HyaST7

— AICH (@AICHNYC) September 28, 2015