MEDIEVAL WAYFARING
The evidence for many of the statements in this paper will be found in various contexts in "Jewish Life in the Middle Ages," in the Hebrew travel literature, and in such easily accessible works as Graetz's "History of the Jews."
Achimaaz has been much used by me. His "Book of Genealogies" (Sefer Yochasin) was written in 1055. The Hebrew text was included by Dr. A. Neubauer in his "Mediaeval Jewish Chronicles," ii, pp. 114 et seq. I might have cited Achimaaz's account of an amusing incident in the synagogue at Venosa. There had been an uproar in the Jewish quarter, and a wag added some lines on the subject to the manuscript of the Midrash which the travelling preacher was to read on the following Sabbath. The effect of the reading may be imagined.
Another source for many of my statements is a work by Julius Aronius, Regesten zur Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, Berlin, 1893. It presents many new facts on the medieval Jewries of Germany.
The quaint story of the Jewish sailors told by Synesius is taken from T.R. Glover's "Life and Letters in the Fourth Century" (Cambridge, 1901), p. 330.
A careful statement on communal organization with regard to the status of
travellers and settlers was contributed by Weinberg to vol. xii of the
Breslau Monatsschrift. The title of the series of papers is Die
Organisation der jüdischen Gemeinden.
For evidence of the existence of Communal Codes, or Note-Books, see Dr. A. Berliner's Beiträge zur Geschichte der Raschi-Commentare, Berlin, 1903, p. 3.
Benjamin of Tudela's "Itinerary" has been often edited, most recently by the late M.N. Adler (London, 1907). Benjamin's travels occupied the years 1166 to 1171, and his narrative is at once informing and entertaining. The motives for his extensive journeys through Europe, Asia, and Africa are thus summed up by Mr. Adler (pp. xii, xiii): "At the time of the Crusades, the most prosperous communities in Germany and the Jewish congregations that lay along the route to Palestine had been exterminated or dispersed, and even in Spain, where the Jews had enjoyed complete security for centuries, they were being pitilessly persecuted in the Moorish kingdom of Cordova. It is not unlikely, therefore, that Benjamin may have undertaken his journey with the object of finding out where his expatriated brethren might find an asylum. It will be noted that Benjamin seems to use every effort to trace and afford particulars of independent communities of Jews, who had chiefs of their own, and owed no allegiance to the foreigner. He may have had trade and mercantile operations in view. He certainly dwells on matters of commercial interest with considerable detail. Probably he was actuated by both motives, coupled with the pious wish of making a pilgrimage to the land of his fathers."
For Jewish pilgrims to Palestine see Steinschneider's contribution to Röhricht and Meisner's Deutsche Pilgerreisen, pp. 548-648. My statement as to the existence of a Jewish colony at Ramleh in the eleventh century is based on Genizah documents at Cambridge, T.S. 13 J. 1.
For my account of the Trade Routes of the Jews in the medieval period, I am indebted to Beazley's "Dawn of Modern Geography," p. 430.
The Letter of Nachmanides is quoted from Dr. Schechter's "Studies in
Judaism," First Series, pp. 131 et seq. The text of Obadiah of
Bertinoro's letter was printed by Dr. Neubauer in the Jahrbuch für die
Geschichte der Juden, 1863.
THE FOX'S HEART (pp. 159-171)
The main story discussed in this essay is translated from the so-called "Alphabet of Ben Sira," the edition used being Steinschneider's (Alphabetum Siracidis, Berlin, 1858).
The original work consists of two Alphabets of Proverbs,—twenty-two in Aramaic and twenty-two in Hebrew—and is embellished with comments and fables. A full account of the book is given in a very able article by Professor L. Ginzberg, "Jewish Encyclopedia," ii, p. 678. The author is not the Ben Sira who wrote the Wisdom book in the Apocrypha, but the ascription of it to him led to the incorporation of some legends concerning him. Dr. Ginzberg also holds this particular Fox Fable to be a composite, and to be derived more or less from Indian originals.