Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar Palacios, better known as “Simón Bolívar”, led for 20 years the struggle to achieve the independence of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. He is known as the “Liberator of America” and is credited with being the founder of the republics of Gran Colombia and Bolivia.
Days ago, in the framework of a conference organized by the Center for Sephardic Studies of Caracas (CESC)the doctor Meyer Magarici FinkelVenezuelan doctor and genealogist, presented the conclusions of a genealogical study he carried out, which demonstrate the Sephardic origin of Bolívar.
“The Sephardic genealogy of Simón Bolívar has already been accepted and approved, and accredited, by the federation of Jewish communities in Spain, the Israeli community of Lisbon, and the Israeli Association of Venezuela. Genealogists know this genealogy, but have not disclosed it for various reasons”commented the expert during his presentation.
Before detailing the blood ties, he recalled that Sephardim are the Jews who lived in Sepharad or Sfarad, “the way the Jews called the Iberian Peninsula” (Spain and Portugal). The Jewish presence in that area dates from the fourth or fifth century, following Christ.
“Being Simón Bolívar descendant of Sephardim and Spaniards, we know that almost 90% of Spanish blood ran through his veins and therefore he will have shared inevitable touches of Arab and Jewish blood with millions of Spaniards,” he added, quoting Dr. Antonio Herrera- Vaillant.
However, Magarici clarified: “Simón Bolívar was not Sephardic; Simón Bolívar was from Caracas, the son of Catholic parents, the same as his grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, etc. The Sephardic ancestors of him are found in the fifteenth century, and also in the fourteenth”.
He was born in Caracas, and was baptized in the Cathedral Church, in the Venezuelan capital, as Simón José Antonio de la Santísima Trinidad Bolívar and Ponte Palacios y Blanco. He was raised as a Catholic in a Catholic family, and married in Madrid, in 1802, with María Teresa Josefa Antonia Joaquina Rodríguez del Toro Alayza, who was also descended from the same Sephardic patriarchs.
To arrive at the results found, “4,096 people had to be explored”: “There we found the first Sephardic, in the twelfth generation.” According to the genealogist, the Sephardic ancestors of the Liberator do not go by paternal or maternal line, “but by a combined line” in which more than 65,000 people were explored. However, he indicated that “his first ancestors with Sephardic origin go through the maternal line.” But then he changes from a maternal line to a paternal line.
The study reaches medieval Spain (14th century) and for which ecclesial and civil acts, and primary and secondary sources were used, reveals that Simón Bolívar descends indirectly in the seventeenth degree through his maternal genealogical line from Abraham Ha’Leví de Burgos (1290-1345), patriarch of a wealthy Jewish family who settled in the Spanish city of Burgos, coming from the kingdom from Aragon.
In turn, Mencía Núñez, sister of Rabbi Shlomó ben Ishaq Ha’Leví of Burgos (1350-1435), is ascendant in the fifteenth degree of Bolívar.
The rabbi, however, converted to Catholicism in 1390 and took the name Pablo de Santa María. He was also known as Bishop Pablo de Burgos, or Pablo de Cartagena, for his services to the Catholic Church in those Spanish regions. Over the years, he became one of the leading anti-Jews of the time. His publications were used as a reference source by Martin Luther, Alfonso de Spina, the Jewish convert Gerónimo de Santa Fe and other writers hostile to the Jewish community.
According to Magarici, there is no evidence to indicate that Bolívar had any notion of his Sephardic origins. Even historians have not written anything regarding their ancestors. But the genealogist avoided speculating on the reasons for this historiographic gap.
Different was the case of another hero like Francisco de Miranda. The lawyer and writer José Chocrón Cohén wrote a book entitled “The secret identity of Francisco de Miranda” (2011), in which he says that the Venezuelan politician and military man was a descendant of crypto-Jews and that, unlike Bolívar, he was aware of it. .
Such was this knowledge of his ancestors that, according to the author in an essay published in 2015, in his different journeys through the United States and Europe, Miranda met with Jews, including a meeting in Germany with the philosopher Moisés Mendelsshon, in September 1785 .
For his part, during his presentation Dr. Magarici commented that Bolívar also shares common Jewish ancestors with the writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, one of the greatest figures in Spanish literature and author of Don Quixote de la Mancha. As he pointed out, the renowned novelist, poet and playwright was a ninth-grade descendant of Abraham Ha’Leví de Burgos and a seventh-grade descendant of Mencía Núñez.
Magarici’s full presentation:
Keep reading:
