I have read a bit about this over the years and there is lots of evidence that Columbus was Jewish. 1492 is not only the year Columbus sailed to the New World, it was also the year that Ferninand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs of Spain, evicted all non-Catholics, mostly Jews and Moors, from Spain. Non-Catholics were supposedly given the option of converting to Catholicism with the infamous Spanish Inquisition as enforcement.

This is interesting to me personally because my family left Spain at this time and settled in Sicily. Family lore says we are Moors but that never seemed likely to me. I suspect that like Columbus my family avoided any connection to being Jewish for fear of persecution. I suppose I could figure out how to take one of these DNA tests. From the BBC.

Columbus likely Spanish and Jewish, study suggests