Joseph ha-Kohen’s Sefer ha-India ha-hadasha: a sixteenth-century Hebrew translation of Gómara’s Historia general and its reinterpretation of Spanish imperialism

Joseph ha-Kohen (1496–1575) was a Jewish doctor and historian from Genoa who wrote the first complete Hebrew book about the Americas, called Sefer ha-India ha-hadasha (Book of New India). His family had been forced out of Spain in 1492, and Ha-Kohen was expelled three times from Genoa. This experience of multiple exiles shaped how he saw the world and wrote about it. At first glance, Ha-Kohen’s Sefer appears to be a straightforward Hebrew translation of Gómara’s Historia general de las Indias. However, a closer examination reveals that Ha-Kohen combined translation with incisive criticism of Spanish conquest and colonialism. Through ‘motivated mistranslations,’ Ha-Kohen critiqued Spanish conquest from a Jewish perspective, downplaying Gómara’s triumphalism and de-Christianizing the text. His translation offered Jewish readers a more humane portrayal of Native Americans and paralleled their oppression with Jewish suffering. By reframing the conquest narrative with biblical allusions, Ha-Kohen created a space for Jewish readers to engage with global knowledge while preserving their distinct cultural identity. His work constitutes a subtle form of literary resistance against Spanish imperialism and reinforced Jewish cultural boundaries in a Christian-dominated world.