Avitus, those are some good points. I think you may be underestimating how much money Columbus could get from the Jewish merchants - remember how they dominated the banking industry at the time. And I had already thought of the slavery issue, and my solution is this: the Jews would be converting their slaves, particularly since they would be implementing the Talmudic code (which has complex and specific provisions for the treatment of slaves). You're right that in time, their community would no longer be ethnically Jewish, but it would be culturally and religiously Jewish.
HJ Tulp, I was planning on having Columbus arrive in the Carolinas, actually.
In the meantime, I think that the Ottoman option still has potential. As long as the Jews provided a tribute (a variation on the jizya tax), Suleiman would probably let them run their own affairs. And the narrative potential of having a Jewish colony allied to the Ottomans in the 16th century is extremely attractive. Jewish Pirates with ships that can shrug off light cannon fire, anyone?
EDIT: Herzen, forgot about you. I think an Old World colony would be another thread. But the idea of Jewish Cossacks has a few things going for it. There was a pretty stable Jewish community in the Crimea, for one. Thande actually had a Jewish Crimean state in Look To The West. And on a personal note, I'm of Krymchak descent myself.
HJ Tulp, I was planning on having Columbus arrive in the Carolinas, actually.
In the meantime, I think that the Ottoman option still has potential. As long as the Jews provided a tribute (a variation on the jizya tax), Suleiman would probably let them run their own affairs. And the narrative potential of having a Jewish colony allied to the Ottomans in the 16th century is extremely attractive. Jewish Pirates with ships that can shrug off light cannon fire, anyone?
EDIT: Herzen, forgot about you. I think an Old World colony would be another thread. But the idea of Jewish Cossacks has a few things going for it. There was a pretty stable Jewish community in the Crimea, for one. Thande actually had a Jewish Crimean state in Look To The West. And on a personal note, I'm of Krymchak descent myself.
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