Past Perfect: On the Road to Paradise

More than a century before Marco Polo set sail for China, a Jewish Spaniard named Benjamin of Tudela embarked on his own remarkable eight-year odyssey across Europe, Asia and Africa. Between 1165 and 1173, this “wandering Jew” traveled more than 2,000 miles, visited over 300 cities (including many in the Holy Land) and journeyed to the farthest reaches of the known world. As he roamed, he set down his impressions in a vivid and meticulously researched travelogue, entitled simply Sefer ha-Massa’ot (The Book of Travels). No one knows what drove Benjamin in his wanderings, but wherever he went he […]