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 Paperback – November 3, 2009

In searching for my Portuguese Sephardic roots I dismissed the book because of its title. Boy was I wrong to have done that!I’d traced ancestors from Madeira, Morocco, St. Thomas and Trinidad.This book put the western Iberian diaspora , after expulsion, fleeing from safety to horrors, alliances made between Sephardim world wide to find safety and a homeland in entirely new perspective.For the genealogist it provides the direction of movement from 1391 & 1492 mass expulsions. As a historical piece it puts names faces and geopolitical events in a clear and riveting story. I couldn’t put it down. Personally I found it rewarding as the majority of it chronicled the Portuguese experience. So many books title themselves and promote to focus on the “Iberian” experiences, yet focus primarily on the Spanish diaspora, usually those who headed to the east.Highly recommend.

The title of this book sounds like the punchline to a "Name the shortest book in the world" joke, but this is actually a readable and fascinating glimpse into another side of the Great Age of Piracy.Jews have been central to Caribbean history since the beginning of European exploration. Even if we dismiss the idea that Cristobal Colon of Genoa, the Spanish/Italian Catholic Admiral of the Ocean Sea was in truth Salvador Fernandes Zarco of Madeira, the Portuguese Jewish discoverer of the New World, Columbus still had many Converso Jews among his crew. Luis de Torres, Columbus's translator, was a Converso who settled in Cuba and cultivated tobacco.Given that the Jews of Spain (once the largest and most successful Jewish community on earth, numbering over one million in the 1100s) had been subjected to more than a century of increasingly vicious persecution at the hands of the Inquisition, and that at least one hundred thousand had converted (for form or substance) prior to the forcible expulsion of the rest from Spain in 1492 (on the very day Columbus sailed), the idea that Jews would make up a large percentage of potential colonists is not hard to understand. It is instructive to remember that Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other Caribbean lands were first colonized by fleeing Jews. Their descendants left a mark on history. At least one is immortalized on American currency; Alexander Hamilton's father was a British Christian. His mother was a Jew from Barbados.It is easy to appreciate and grasp is the fact that the outlawed Jews would work their vengeance against the Spanish Empire by becoming true outlaws. Jews not only sailed the Spanish Main under the Jolly Roger, they acted as spies for other European powers, fenced booty, fought as mercenaries, and funded privateers. Disenfranchised nice Jewish boys from Toledo became some of the most feared swashbucklers in history and occupied Tortuga. Perhaps Captain Jack Sparrow was really Captain Jack Shapiro. The fact that many of them, like Jean Lafitte, were Jewish has become lost in time. Knowing the root of this enmity, the fact that the Spaniards and the pirates showed each other no quarter is understandable.This is a fascinating and enjoyable book that throws new light on a popular era in history.

Interesting book

There is a lot of information about that period that explained details not only of pirates but the Jewish people and what they went through. I especially found it interesting that Jean Lafitte had a Jewish connection.

WHAT THE BOOKS ABOUT: Jewish Pirates aren't the main focus of the book, which is understandable of course. It begins with Columbus, Marranos who travelled with him, and other Marrano explorers, (referred to in the book as "conversos") such as Gaspar da Gama, a Jew who helped Vasco da Gama. Much of the book is about particular Jews or Jewish families that took to the sea, supporting to whatever extent (some privateering) certain empires, whether the Ottomans, English or Dutch - in short, Spain's enemies. Most of the book is concerned however with Conversos; hardly any of the people in the book are not Spanish of Portuguese. The most interesting part is the role of the Jews in England's early Caribbean Empire, especially the capture of Port Royal (which was called Santiago de la Vega when Spanish ruled it), which was a significant factor in Cromwell's readmission of the Jews.WHY IT ISN'T A GREAT BOOK: To be honest, "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean" with its hyperbolic subtitle advertises an aura and expectation which is not lived up to. Some of the "Jews" and "conversos" in fact had little Jewish blood and/or completely turned their backs on their roots, thus disqualifying the Hollywood-esque title. There are some embarrassing inaccuracies (for example Kritzler writes that "King John expelled the Jews from England in 1290") which prove the incompetence of the book's editors, and moreover the author. How such gross mistakes on basic matters come about is just a phenomenon.Another flaw is the bulk of chapter 5, going on about the Jews in Holland for 20 or 30 pages, none of which has any relevance either to Pirates or the Caribbean. Totally out of place, the author devotes these pages to berating the religious Jewish community in Holland, his sole evidence being a letter of one single disgruntled person, out of how many thousands? And what has this to do with "Jewish pirates of the Caribbean"!?!This is the worst, but not the only, example of wasted space. Kritzler bores us with countless meaningless details and stories... another example is the adventures of the famous Sir Henry Morgan, which also take up quite a few pages - not mentioned anything which concerns the Jews even remotely - what is this guy thinking?On top of all this, and what many (many!) reviewers here on Amazon complain about, is that the entire book lacks proper structure: much of it is not chronological; it is constantly shifting from diplomatic relationships and sea battles and treasure hunts that never happened and slave trade and this and that etc which makes the book difficult for ANYbody to follow.TO SUM UP: Whether you were looking for a thrilling read since the topic tickles your interest, or just like history, or whatever is your ambition, you will be disappointed. But for all these flaws, one must admit that the book is very interesting!

I like having a personal note attached to the book which was in excellent condition!!