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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Benjamin of Tudela Biography BENJAMIN of Tudela. (Benjamin ben Jonah). A Jewish traveler. He was born at Tudela, in Navarre, Spain. He was the first European who gave information respecting the distant East. He made a journey from about 1160 to 1173 (in which year he died) from Saragossa, through southern France, Italy, and Greece, to Palestine, Persia, and the borders of China, returning by way of Khuzistan, the Indian Ocean, and Yemen to Egypt, Sicily, and Spain. His notes—translated into Latin, English, German, Dutch, and French—are exceedingly Valuable; but, like so many early travelers, he readily accepted miraculous stories which were told him, and his accounts are not always trustworthy. The latest edition, by Asher (London and Berlin, 1840–41), contains the original text, with an English translation and annotations. He took notes during his travels, and these were published with a preface by an unknown author under the title Massa'oth shel Rabbi Binjamin ('Travels of Rabbi Benjamin’). The Hebrew text was printed at Constantinople in 1543, and often since, the latest edition being that of Grünhut published in Jerusalem, 1903. It was translated into Latin by Ari’as Montanus in 1575, and subsequently into Dutch, German, and French. Asher published the Hebrew text with an English translation in London, 1840, and M. N. Adler a part of it in the Quarterly Statement of the Palestine Exploration Fund, October, 1894, from a manuscript in the British Museum. Consult E. Carmoly and L. Lekwel, Notice Historique sur Benjamin de Tudèle (1852). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. III (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 141. |