Pedro Alvares Cabral was the first human being in recorded history to have been on four continents. He set foot on each of them — Europe, Africa, America, and Asia — in a single year, 1500, which was the same year that he led the first extensive European exploration of the northeast coast of South America. He “discovered” what we know today as Brazil in April of that year, and wrote home to King Manuel I notifying him of Portugal’s brand new territory, theirs by virtue of the authority vested in him by the King and his interpretation of the divine will. Cabral sailed on from Brazil, but he left behind the seeds of what would become the first robust Jewish community on the American continent. Among Cabral’s crew was a man who went by the name João Faras. Faras was an astronomer, astrologer, physician, translator and — most importantly for our purposes — he was a member of the community of Portuguese Jews who had been forcibly converted to Christianity by the King of Portugal just a few years after the Spanish expulsion.