On Luis de Torres & On Jews in on Tobacco from Day One

lo-fi & lovely 

On Luis de Torres & On Jews in on Tobacco from Day One

[This post has been edited 7/7/21. Originally designed to be part of a Jews in Tobacco series, now mildly altered to stand alone a bit more easily.]

"Let's start at the very beginning --
A very good place to start.
When you read you begin with A-B-C,
When you sing you begin with do-re-mi."
- Maria and the Children, Do-Re-Mi.

& when one begins to embark upon the western tale of tobacco, and Jews within that tale, one finds oneself speaking of Luis de Torres. Born Yosef ben Levi Ha-Ivri, de Torres sailed the ocean blue in 1492 while serving as an interpreter under Christopher Columbus and his discovery of the new world. He landed this gig on the back of his prior position as an interpreter for Juan Chacon, the Governor of Murcia, a province of Spain with a large Jewish population.

Worthy of note is that his conversion to Catholicism and subsequent name-change were due to his attempt at avoiding the Jewish expulsion from Spain during the Inquisition era. Apparently, there are some who did expect The Inquisition. Whether or not this conversion was any type of theological transformation, is unknown--but also not expected to have been the case.

So why did Columbus pack along a Jew for the journey? Glad ya asked, Gentlepersons--de Torres was well-versed in several tongues, but his Hebrew and Aramaic were foremost of usefulness in this context, as Columbus expected to meet and greet who he was sure to be Asian descendants of the Lost Tribes of Israel on his proposed new route.

After reaching Cuba; which Columbus thought was Asia, the navigator extraordinaire and par excellence sent de Torres on a mission to locate cities and the riches therein. Some 60 miles into his mission, Luis de Torres found an Indian village of roughly one-thousand occupants. He and his companion were greeted with the utmost of hospitality. This included a customary offering of a burning tobacco leaf which was to be placed in your nose and inhaled. Talk about smell/tastes and retro-haling! More familiar to us eventually, was the packing of these dried leaves into cane pipes.

This marked a European's first dalliance into our wonderful world of tobacco. While that information returned to Christopher Columbus and then to Spain and as the rest, as they say, is history--there is far less proof as to what happened to the man himself, Luis de Torres. The first Jew to have stepped foot in the New World; the first European to behold then hold tobacco, Luis de Torres met two quite different fates dependant upon your comfy lore. 

The happy scenario sees de Torres granted land, slaves, and marriage which cemented strong alliances. All whilst living out his days in pre-Castro Cuba. The unhappy counterpoint to this possibility is the equally possible thought that ol' Columbus left behind some 40 crew members to make room for booty, de Torres among that count. These unfortunates were then massacred by their once delightful hosts. Something about trumped-up charges of abducting Native women.

Wherever lies the ultimate fate of one Luis de Torres, this much can be certain: the history of western tobacco and Judaism are entwined from their first steps. This just in: we do have some reports that he died in or around 1493, so... yeah... [REDACTED] Thanks for reading, it is greatly and always appreciated.

@kaplowitzmedia

::: very :::