Voyage to Jerusalem: The Fifteenth Century Travel Letters of Rabbi Ovadiah of Bartenura

In the fifteenth century, Rabbi Ovadiah, rabbi of Bartenura (alternatively, Bertinoro), a town in the province of Flori, and in Castello, authored the foremost commentator on the Mishnah. His desire to visit the Holy Land led him to Jerusalem; and he arrived there March 25, 1488, having commenced his journey October 29, 1486. He wrote descriptions of his travels; and his letters to his relations in Italy, although intended only as private communications, are of great historical value. Most interesting in these letters is the fund of information concerning the social and intellectual conditions of the Jews in Greece, Egypt, and the Holy Land. He shows himself therein not only a close observer, but a conscientious and unprejudiced chronicler. For example, he studied attentively the conditions of the Karaites in Alexandria, and did not hesitate to praise them for the possession of the very virtues which the Rabbinites denied to them, such as generosity and liberality. His description of the Samaritans in Egypt is one of the most valuable and reliable of medieval times.