If anyone thought that the Jews were a nation of landlubbers, a new book sheds some interesting new light on what used to pass for a job for a nice Jewish boy.

According to Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean by Edward Kritzler, there were a number of Jews flying the Jolly Roger on the high seas in the years following the Spanish Inquisition.

One, a man named Samuel Palache, was a “pirate rabbi” who sent a flotilla of privateers to operate against Spanish shipping. Then at weekends he returned to his congregation — as minister of Holland’s first synagogue.

Oy vey, Jim lad!