Background
Benjamin of Tudela was born in 1130, in Tudela, Spain.
Benjamin of Tudela was born in 1130, in Tudela, Spain.
Apparently, he set out in 1159 (some think 1167) and returned in 1172, after which he wrote the account of his journeys. He came from Tudela in Navarre, Spain, but the object of his journey is unknown. He was presumably a merchant, but nothing clear emerges from his book. It contains a unique picture of Jewish life in many countries in his time, with communal, economic, and literary details that make the work a primary source of information for non-Jewish as well as Jewish life. Written clearly, concisely, and observantly it was quoted approvingly by the English historian, Edward Gibbon.
Leaving Spain, Benjamin went first to Provence, visiting all its major cities and writing about its distinguished scholars. He sailed from Marseilles to Genoa, making his way down Italy to Rome, describing its beauty and its antiquities. From there he traveled to southern Italy, telling of the great medical university of Salerno and the petroleum wells near Sorrento. He sailed to Corfu and then to Constantinople, about which he writes at length (“a busy city to which merchants come by sea or land, and there is none like it in the world, except Baghdad”). He moved on to the Aegean islands and the Syrian coast where he noted the Jewish glassblowers, the cultivation of the mastic tree, which exudes a resin used in medicine, the waterworks of Antioch, and the Shiite sect of assassins, explaining that the word originated from “hashish,” which they used as an opiate.
He visited every important city in Palestine, mentioning some of their Latin and French names, gave locations for the graves of famous rabbis, and providing a detailed account of the holy places. His account of the Druze sect is the first to be found in non-Arabic literature. This was the time of the Crusades and he encountered only a few Jews in Jerusalem, earning their living as dyers and living under the shadow of the Tower of David.
He writes extensively of Damascus, but his longest account is of Baghdad, of the court of the caliph, of the great Jewish academies, and the splendor of the exilarch (the head of the Jewish community) and the honor accorded to him.
Benjamin then gives information on communities throughout Asia, but the likelihood is that he did not visit them, but relied on hearsay. He next visited Egypt and returned home via Sicily and Italy.
BENJAMIN OF TUDELA DESCRIBES THE JEWISH EXILARCH IN BAGHDAD
Every fifth day, when he goes to pay a visit to the great Caliph, horsemen — gentile and Jewish — escort him and heralds proclaim in advance “Make way before our Lord, the son of David, as is due to him.” He is mounted on a horse and attired in robes of silk and embroidery with a large turban on his head, and from the turban is suspended a long white cloth adorned with a chain upon which the cipher of Mohammed is engraved. Then he appears before the Caliph and kisses his hand and the Caliph rises and places him upon a throne which Mohammed had ordered to be made for him, and all the Mohammedan prin¬ces who attend the court of the Caliph rise before him.