Yarrrrr

It be International Talk Like ye Pirate Day, so if ye be leavin' comments, they'd best be in yer best sea-dog dialect.

Some land-lubbers out yonder may think find it a mite odd for a nice Jewish boy like meself t' be talkin' like a one-eyed fool with a wooden leg. But ye'd be wrong.

Ye see, me scurvy sea-dogs, some o' the finest pirates in all the Seven Seas were Jewish. So says Ed Kritzler, a scholar of the pirates, who tells the tale o' how the Spanish Inquisition unexpectedly drove some Sephardic Jews to the pirates' life:

While some Jews, like Samuel Pallache, took up piracy in part to help make a better life for expelled Spanish Jews, Kritzler said others were motivated by revenge for the Inquisition.

One such pirate was Moses Cohen Henriques, who helped plan one of history's largest heists against Spain. In 1628, Henriques set sail with Dutch West India Co. Admiral Piet Hein, whose own hatred of Spain was fueled by four years spent as a galley slave aboard a Spanish ship. Henriques and Hein boarded Spanish ships off Cuba and seized shipments of New World gold and silver worth in today's dollars about the same as Disney's total box office for "Dead Man's Chest."

Yar. It makes a fella proud.

A tip o' the tricorn to BoingBoing for bringing this bit o' treasure to arrr attention.