October 11th, 2026, 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Join Rabbi Shlomo Pereira for a fascinating exploration of one of history’s most pivotal moments—the year 1492. This presentation examines the dramatic intersection between Christopher Columbus’s voyage to the Americas and the expulsion of Jews from Spain, two watershed events that occurred within days of each other.
Discover the remarkable Jewish figures who made Columbus’s expedition possible: Rabbi Abraham Zacuto, whose astronomical tables saved Columbus’s life; Don Isaac Abarbanel, the brilliant court financier who fled Portugal for Spain; and Luis de Santangel, the converso who financed the voyage. Learn how the Almanach and astrolabe solved critical navigation challenges, and explore the complex world of Jews, conversos, and Marranos in late 15th-century Iberia.
The presentation addresses compelling questions: Were there Jews aboard Columbus’s ships? How was the second voyage financed with confiscated Jewish wealth? Was Columbus himself Jewish? Through careful examination of circumstantial, mystical, and genetic evidence—alongside scholarly critique—this lecture provides balanced historical analysis of a persistent theory.
Rabbi Shlomo Pereira is Educator Director of Chabad of Virginia in Richmond, VA and Thomas Vaughan Memorial Professor Emeritus of Economics and Public Policy at the College of William and Mary. At Chabad he has taught extensively on topics ranging from Jewish history and law to Jewish philosophy and mysticism. He’s written two widely circulated texts and has produced a weekly trilingual (English, Spanish, Portuguese) 1-page historic note on the Jewish presence in the Land of Israel.
In collaboration with Rabbi Eli Rosenfeld, head of Chabad Portugal, he has published books on the contributions of the Iberian rabbis of old and on early Hebrew printing in Portugal. This collaboration has resulted in the publication of several bilingual books: in 2018, Jewish Voices from Portugal a book of sermons on the Torah portion based on the writings of rabbis who called Portugal home in the late 1400s; in 2020, Jewish Ethics from Portugal, focusing on the commentaries of the same rabbis on Pirkei Avot; in 2023, Letter from Lisbon a book on the brief passage of the Lubavitcher Rebbe through Lisbon in 1941, as he fled the nazi onslaught in Europe; and, in 2025,Monuments of Paper and Parchment a volume on the history of Hebrew printing in Portugal.
An economist and university professor by trade, in 1987, R. Pereira received his Ph.D. in Economics from Stanford University and joined the faculty of the University of California, San Diego. From 1995 until his retirement in September 2025, he served as a faculty member at William & Mary, with the title of Thomas Vaughan Memorial Professor of Economics and Public Policy. His primary research and teaching interests were in the economics of the public sector, focusing on taxation, infrastructure policies, and environmental issues. Having collaborated over the years with multiple international organizations and Portuguese governments on a variety of public policy issues, R. Pereira served in the last decade as technical advisor to the Portuguese Ministry of the Environment and played a key role in the design and implementation of the taxation of carbon dioxide emissions in the country. Ranked among the top 5% of economists in the world, he authored 136 refereed technical research articles published in international journals and 10 policy books throughout his economics career.
Rabbi Shlomo Pereira is a native of Lisbon, Portugal and moved to the United States with his wife Elisheva in 1982. Having first lived in Stanford and then in San Diego, California, they settled in Virginia in 1995, first in Williamsburg and then in Richmond. R. Pereira and his wife Elisheva raised five children and have eleven grandchildren. Aside from these family achievements, none of the professional accomplishments listed above would have been possible without the active support and dedicated participation of his wife, Elisheva.
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