When a Spanish researcher announced in a documentary last fall that he had identified Columbus’s remains in Seville Cathedral—and that genetic analysis revealed he was Jewish—the story spread through international media like a viral tweet. But the science behind it relied on questionable methodologies.
Natalie Dohrmann (NBD): Marek, tell us a bit about your scholarly interests, what drew you to them, and what especially excites you about them personally and/or intellectually.
In Penn’s Libraries, one can find a particular battle-scarred volume. It is a large folio, rebound in old leather, damaged by fire, with margins cut, pages torn out, others stolen but then replaced, marked by a few clever patches to the parchment. There are marginal notes in a variety of inks and handwritings representing many generations of readers and amenders. It is a late thirteenth–early fourteenth-century Mahzor, or Jewish prayer book for the high holidays, originating from the German Rhineland. (CAJS Rare MS 382).
