Between Europe and the Holy Land. East European Jews as Intermediaries betwen Europe and the Near East from the 16th through the 17th Centuries

Mikhail Kizilov | Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, Institutum Judaicum - University of Tübingen

My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West […] It would be easy for me to leave all the bounty of Spain –

As it is precious for me to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

Judah Halevi

Medieval Jewish poet and philosopher Judah Halevi was perhaps one of the first European Jews to express his yearning for the East in writing. He not only expressed the desire to leave his native Spain and move to the Holy Land, but he actually tried to do so. It seems, however, that he died in Egypt in 1141 on his way to Jerusalem. A later and not-too-trustworthy Jewish legend tells us that he was actually killed by an Arab rider at the gates of the Holy City. In the late Middle Ages and early mod-ern times many European Jews followed Halevi’s example and travelled eastwards, although not all of them had such elevated ideas about the Holy Land nor the intel-lectual necessity to dwell there. In this period Jewish travellers, pilgrims, merchants, physicians and diplomats played important roles in communication and the de-velopment of trade routes between Europe and the East. Jews took an active part in trade, commerce, diplomacy and the development of medical knowledge. While some scattered information about the Jews as intermediaries between Europe and the East in this period is available from miscellaneous commercial, diplomatic and legal documents, travel accounts remain the main source of information on the sub-ject. This paper focuses on the analysis of travel accounts1 and other documents

1 Any research into travel writing in Hebrew and Yiddish should start from a few collections of Jewish travelogues in English translations and originals (note, however, that only some of the accounts published there were penned by Jews from Eastern Europe): Otsar masa’ot: a collection of itineraries by Jewish travellers, ed. by J. D. Eisenstein, New York, n.p., 1926; repr. Tel-Aviv, 1969;

300 mikhail kizilov

related to the role of East European Jews as intermediaries in the development of trade, diplomacy, and medical science between European and Oriental countries (primarily the Ottoman Empire) from the 16th through the 17th centuries.

Due to their active involvement in trading activity and frequent change of residence, European Jewish travellers left a number of highly important travel accounts from the Middle Ages onwards.2 On the other hand, it is worth noting that despite their travelling all over the world, Jewish travellers did not compose many travelogues—at least not in comparison to those of their Christian contemporaries. Travel ac-counts of European Jews from the early modern period usually represented itin-eraries of pilgrimages to the Land of Israel (Erets Yisra’el).3 In contrast to their Ashkenazi brethren, East European Jews started composing travelogues compara-tively late, perhaps only from the 16th century.4 In terms of their content, accounts of Jewish travellers from Eastern Europe are usually full of eloquent Biblical quota-tions and lofty allusions combined with descriptions of everyday life, people, events, architectural monuments, towns, food and customs. Most of the Jewish travelogues were composed in Hebrew, known in Jewish tradition as leshon ha-qodesh (“sacred language”). However, the language employed by Jewish travellers in early modern times differed considerably from traditional Biblical Hebrew while including a number of borrowed words and expressions from vernacular languages. From the 16th century onwards, however, many travellers preferred composing their travel accounts in Yiddish. On their way to the Holy Land Jewish travellers also visited

Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, ed. by A. Ya’ari, Tel-Aviv, n.p., 1946; repr. Tel Aviv, n.p. 1996; Jewish travel-lers, ed. by E. Adler, London, Routledge 1930, and repr. as Jewish travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 firsthand accounts, ed. by Elkan Adler, New York, Dover 1987. Sheluhei Erets Yisra’el, ed. by A. Ya’ari, Jerusalem, Rav Kuk, 1951, contains an extensive analysis of writings of Jewish travellers to Palestine from the earliest days until the end of the 18th century.

2 E.g. famous 12th century Jewish travellers: Petahyah of Ratisbon, Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon, who, in the latter end of the twelfth century, visited Poland, Russia, Little Tartary, the Crimea, Armenia, Assyria, Syria, the Holy Land, and Greece, trans. Dr A. Benisch, London, Longman, 1861 (Hebrew original with English translation); The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, ed. by E. Adler, London, H. Frowde, 1907.

3 For a complete bibliography, see Mikhail Kizilov, “Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing,” in A Bibliography of East European Travel Writing on Europe (=East Looks West, vol. 3), ed. by W. Bracewell and A. Drace-Francis, Budapest / New York, CEU, 2008, pp. 229-41.

4 Unfortunately for our topic, most Early Modern Jewish travellers were from Central and Western Europe. From the nineteen Jewish travel accounts selected by E. Adler, only one (!) traveller was of East European origin. The quantity of travels to Palestine grew significantly in the 18th century due to the rise of the Hasidic movement in Polish lands. However, only a few Hasidic travellers and immigrants to Erets Yisra’el recorded their travel experiences in writing. For the bibliography of accounts of Christian travellers to the Holy Land, see Nathan Schur, Jerusalem in Pilgrims and Travellers’ Accounts: A Thematic Bibliography of Western Christian Itineraries 1300-1917, Jerusalem, Ariel Pub. House, 1980, 151 p.

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 301

adjacent regions: the Caucasus, Egypt, European countries and even travellers’ own countries.5 A very specific feature of Jewish travel accounts is their ethnocentric fo-cus on local Jewish life. Nevertheless, Jewish travellers also left some important data on the history of other peoples and countries.

Travelling eastwards became much easier for Jewish voyagers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries following a series of Ottoman conquests in Europe and in the Muslim East. In those times Jewish travellers coming from the territory of today’s Poland, Lithuania or Ukraine simply had to cross a border with the Ottoman Empire—and then travel all the way from the Balkans or Budapest to Jerusalem or Egypt within the limits of one state, i.e. the Ottoman Empire. Slightly different was the situation in the Crimean peninsula, which was inhabited largely by the Karaite (i.e. non-Talmudic) Jews. The Crimea itself was a highly interesting and essentially “intermediary” area: geographically a part of Eastern Europe but politically and ethnically part of the Ottoman Empire and of the larger Muslim Orient. It also housed its own semi-independent Tatar state of the Crimean Khanate which controlled central, western and northern parts of the Crimea to-gether with the southern part of the Ukraine, Dobrudzha and North Caucasus. Many trade routes, such as the famous Silk Route, via Tartarica (leading from Caffa, the largest Crimean port, to Lwów / Lemberg in Poland), the Moldavian route and others led to or passed through the Crimea in the medieval and early modern period.6 Equally strong were trade routes between the Crimea, Turkey, and the Mediterranean.7 Thus, the Crimea and its Jewish inhabitants were inter-mediaries between East and West by definition.

Let me now turn to an analysis of the so-called “travel account” by Gershon ben Eliezer Halevi of Prague who, in his own words, went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1624. I have used inverted commas since, as I shall argue below, ben Eliezer most likely never travelled to the East. It seems that his work represents a compilation of geographic accounts by other travellers. Nevertheless, his account, which was composed in Yiddish,8 provides us with an excellent and detailed pic-

5 Travels to Europe nevertheless remained rather on the margin of Jewish travel writings, while being outnumbered by travel descriptions of Palestine and the Muslim Orient.

6 For more information on these routes, see Michel Balard, “Gênes et la mer Noire (xiiie-xve siècles),” Revue Historique, 270, 1983, р. 52-53; Eleonora Nadel-Golobič, “Armenians and Jews in Medieval Lvov: Their Role in Oriental Trade 1400-1600,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 20, 1979, р. 355-9, 385.

7 Especially strong were the ties between the Genoese colonies of the Crimea (Caffa, Cembalo, and Sudak) and Italy.

8 Originally published in Yiddish, this account has been republished many times in early modern and modern times: Gershon ben Eliezer Halevi of Prague, Galilot erets-Yisra’el [Regions of the Land of Israel], Lublin, 1634/5; also pub. Fürth: 1691; Amsterdam: Asher Shuht, 1705. Furthermore,

302 mikhail kizilov

ture of geographic routes used by Jewish travellers in their travels between Europe and the East. At the beginning of his book ben Eliezer states that there were five main routes used by European Jews in order to get to the Holy Land. He men-tions that the first two routes began from two European cities: Fenedig (Venice) and Oven-Stat (Budapest).9 Unfortunately, he does not specify the exact continu-ation of the routes, but one may imagine that both were supposed to meet in Constantinople in order to continue from there by land or by sea to the Holy Land. According to ben Eliezer, however, the best route was the direct one from the Polish city of Kamieniec Podolski to Jassy in Valachia and Bugdania (Moldova / Romania). From there a traveller was supposed to reach the fortress of Galats (Galaţi) on the river Tuna (i.e. the Danube) and then it would take a traveller only two hours to get by boat to a village on the border with Turkey. The next desti-nations were the cities of Provadia and Karnobat (modern day Bulgaria). From there ben Eliezer suggests travelling by the following land route: Adrianople - Constantinople - Skutari (Üsküdar) - Angoria (Ankara) - Amasya - Tokat - Aleppo - Damask. From there the Holy Land was so close that ben Eliezer did not specify how to get there. Having described this route, ben Eliezer states that it is a very remote and expensive way to travel and thus he suggests another itinerary. The main advantage of this, more convenient route was the fact that it required travelling by sea only. Ben Eliezer also describes in detail the price per person for each part of the route. It starts from the city of Gallipoli on the Sea of Marmara, leads to Rhodes and ends in Sidon (in modern day Lebanon). According to ben Eliezer, Sidon was already in Eretz Yisra’el (the Land of Israel) and thus he sug-gests travelling from there to Jerusalem overland. Another option he suggests is to travel first to Alexandria in Egypt, then to Diamet (Damietta) - Serida (a cor-ruption of Resida, i.e. Rosetta) - Egyptian Ramla - Caesarea - Acre. From Acre one could again reach Jerusalem by land.

Having described the main routes from Eastern Europe to the Holy Land, ben Eliezer starts describing his own travels. His way to Jerusalem (if we are to be-

it has been translated into Hebrew without any indication of the fact that it was a translation: Id., Iggeret ha-qodesh: galilot erets-Yisra’el [A sacred epistle: regions of the land of Israel], Grodno, 1796 (also in Otsar masa’ot, op. cit., pp. 176-87). I shall refer to the most recent Hebrew edition which includes both Yiddish original, Hebrew translation, and commentaries: Galilot erets-Yis-ra’el im tirgum be-ivrit be-shem Iggeret ha-qodesh, ed. by I. ben Zvi, Jerusalem, Rav Kuk, 1953, pagination. I checked this book with the edition published in Amsterdam: Asher Shuht, 1705. In general, it has almost the same (with slight variations) toponyms and place names. One impor-tant difference is the place name Katria (ארזוכ ץראל ךומס אירתכ טאטש). In other editions this placename is spelled as Batirah / Batria. There is no doubt that this Katria (אירתכ) is a corruption of Kozaria .(אירזוכ)

9 It is worthwhile noting that in the time of his travel there were considerable Jewish communities in both cities.

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 303

lieve his words) was not the easiest one. In 1624 he was taken captive “in the city of Qrimonah in the land of the Tatars”. The identification of this city with the Italian city of Cremona10 cannot be true since in the next phrase ben Eliezer men-tions that the city was governed by Qamntimr Bashi (i.e. Kantemir pasha) and Sultan Mehmed Omruzeah (i.e. Murza). Thus, it should be interpreted as a refer-ence to the city of Qırım (modern day Staryi Krym in the Crimea), often referred to in European sources as “Krimenda,” almost identical with the “Qrimonah” of Gershon ben Eliezer. From there he was sent to the city of Sefeh, where he was redeemed by Constantinopolitan Jews at the price of 500 Löwenthaler. Again, the identification of this place with the Bulgarian city of Sofia, which was suggested by previous scholars, is implausible and it is much more likely that ben Eliezer meant the city of Kefe (or Caffa, modern Theodosia in the Crimea), where the main slave market of the Crimean peninsula was located. From there, apparently as a free man, he travelled to the city of Bachshitsariah (i.e. Bahçesaray). In his own words, he travelled onwards by the Black Sea (fig. 1) and then through the land of the Tatars to the town of Batria (or Batirah) located next to the land of Cozra (Khazaria). From there he travelled to Persia and then finally to Erets Israel.

Figure 1 | Sixteenth-century map of the Black Sea region published in Tartariae Descriptio by Martinus Broniovius (Marcin Broniewski, Cologne 1595).

10 This improbable identification has been suggested by previous scholars working on this tra-velogue (e.g. commentaries to Rav Gershon’s travel book, in Otsar masa’ot, op. cit., pp. 177-181; Galilot erets-Yisra’el, op. cit., p. 17, ft. 31.

304 mikhail kizilov

A careful reading of ben Eliezer’s diary does not leave any doubt that he in fact invented most of the details mentioned in his book. His knowledge of Crimean, Caucasian and Near Eastern geography is blurred and confused while his descrip-tions are often almost verbatim accounts of medieval travellers (especially those of Petachia of Regensburg and Benjamin of Tudela). Equally fanciful is his de-scription of the Holy Land, and, especially, the account of his further travels in the land of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. I had some hopes that at least the “Crimean part” of his travelogue would contain genuine information about his travels—but more careful analysis does not support this hypothesis. The description of ben Eliezer’s misadventures in the Crimea is conspicuously reminiscent of the misfor-tunes of medieval Cabbalist Jacob ben Moses of Kiev, who in 1505 was captured by the Tatars, driven first to the town of Qırım—and then ransomed in Caffa (Kefe).11 Furthermore, it is impossible to travel from Bahçesaray by sea due to the fact that this Crimean town is actually located far from the coast, in the very centre of the peninsula. To give another example, the mysterious town of Batria (Batirah; in the Dutch edition—Katria) is a corruption of Kozaria (Khazaria). By the 17th century the state of Khazaria had long ceased to exist; moreover, the city called “Kozaria” never existed in those borders. All this leads to the rather unpleasant conclusion that ben Eliezer’s account cannot be considered a description of the genuine trav-els of its author to the East. Thus, I cannot support the opinion of previous schol-ars working on his travel diary who thought that ben Eliezer did travel to the Holy Land. This, however, does not mean that one should completely discard the value of his geographic treatise. After all, it was based on accounts of other travellers—and thus still provides highly important information on the development of trade routes between Eastern Europe and the Near East.

Gershon ben Eliezer’s book clearly shows how travel routes connected such European centres as Vienna, Venice, Budapest and Kamieniec with the Ottoman Empire and the Near East. This account, its unreliability and imprecision notwith-standing, is highly important since practically all previous and later Jewish travel-lers from Europe reached the Holy Land via one of the routes described by ben Eliezer. Another East European Jewish author, Moses ben Israel Naftali Hirsch of Prague (ca. 1610-?), travelled to the Holy Land around 1621, having been sent there by the head of the Prague Jewish community, Yeshua Halevi Horovits.12 Like ben Eliezer, he preferred to compose his account not in Hebrew, but in Yiddish.13 His

11 See quotes from Moshe ben Jacob’s Ozar Nehmad (1515) in Shimon Bernstein, “Ha-mahzor ke-minhag Kafa, toldotav ve-hitpathuto”, in Samuel K. Mirsky Jubilee Volume, New York, Jubilee Committee, 1958, p. 458, ft. 7.

12 Alias: Porges/Poerges/Präger/Foriat.13 See also another account by a 17th century East European Jewish traveller, which was also com-

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 305

account is much more detailed and realistic than that of his contemporary, ben Eliezer. The veracity of this travelogue does not give rise to any suspicions. Like ben Eliezer, at the beginning of his account Moses of Prague also provides us with information about the travel routes to the Holy Land from Prague. First of all, he mentions the importance of travelling to Constantinople (Qushta) which can be reached in two ways. The first is through Central and Central Eastern Europe: Prague - Vienna - Budapest - Belgrad - Sofia - Adrianople - Constantinople. The other way is from Prague to the capital of Eastern Galicia (historical Poland, to-day Western Ukraine), the city of Lemberg (L’vov / Lwów); from there the travel-ler was supposed to get to Constantinople overland through today’s Romania and Bulgaria. From Constantinople the traveller could reach the Holy Land either by sea (Constantinople - Rhodes - Jaffa) or by land (Constantinople - Ankara - Aleppo - Hamadan - Damask - Safed - Jerusalem). One may notice that the routes mentioned by Moses of Prague are in many respects similar to those outlined by Gershon ben Eliezer. While describing the routes and his own way to the Holy Land Moses of Prague provides readers with a great amount of everyday advice and practicalities, describing the prices in local currencies, enumerating types of goods sold and por-traying the life of local Jewish communities and the state of antiquities.14

As a highly interesting and idiosyncratic phenomenon, one should compare these accounts to the travel accounts of East European Karaite (i.e. non-Talmudic) Jews.15 In contrast to their Ashkenazi brethren, the Karaite Jews possessed virtu-

posed in Yiddish (Simcha ben Pesakh of Brześć/Brest, Sibuv qivrei ha-tsaddiqim [A tour round the graves of the righteous], Amsterdam: n.p., n.d.).

14 Moses ben Israel Naftali Hirsch Porges, Darkei Tzion [The roads of Zion], Amsterdam 1650. German translation/adaptation: Wege nach Zion. Reiseberichte und Briefe aus Erez Jissrael in drei Jahrhunderten, Berlin, Schocken Verlag, 1935, 89 p. Hebrew translation in Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, op.cit., pp. 267-304; Hungarian translation in: Shlomo Spitzer and Geza Komoróczy (eds.), Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a magyarországi zsidóság történetéhez a kezdetektõl 1686-ig,. Budapest, MTA Judaisztikai Kutatocsoport, Osiris Kiado, 2003, pp. 579-84.

15 The Karaite Jews (Karaites) are members of an independent religious movement within Judaism. The origins of this movement are still being debated—according to the Rabbanite sources it began only in the 8th century A.D., whereas the Karaites themselves claim ancient Israelite ori-gins. In spite of doctrinal parallels with some ancient Jewish sectarian movements, a greater scholarly approach suggests that it was only in the 9th-10th centuries that a few non-Talmudic dissident groups of Near Eastern origin merged into a unified movement called the Karaites or bene’ miqra. By the end of the 10th-11th centuries the Karaite communities were present in the countries of the Middle East, Byzantium, North Africa, the Caucasus and the Iberian Peninsula. The Karaites derive their name from the Hebrew word qara’im, which should be translated as “Scripturalists” or “champions of the Scripture.” Unfortunately, the exact time and precise his-torical circumstances, under which the Kypchak language was adopted by the medieval Karaite community as the main language of everyday use is still unclear. Nevertheless, it is possible to assume that it happened in the 12th-14th centuries, at the time of the Cuman and Tatar domination

306 mikhail kizilov

ally no knowledge of Yiddish and spoke the Turkic Karaim language16 as their Umgangssprache. In spite of the fact that from the end of the 16th century on-wards the Karaites began using the Karaim language not only as a language of everyday use, but also as a literary language, practically all accounts by Karaite travellers were composed in Hebrew. The Karaites, who in the early modern pe-riod lived in Poland, Lithuania and the Crimea, were a minority in comparison to their Rabbanite brethren (fig.2). As a consequence of the Russo-Swedish War, which took part in Lithuanian territory, as well as frequent famines, conflagra-tions and epidemics, by the end of the 18th century the Karaite community of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth had dwindled to 2,000-3,000 people.17 And yet, this minuscule community left a number of highly important travel accounts describing vicissitudes of Karaite travellers to the Holy Land, some of which are a must read for anyone researching the history of the development of trade routes between Europe and the East. A specific feature of all accounts by Karaite travel-lers is their focus on the state of the Karaite communities and their historical monuments. To give one example, the first thing which Moses ben Elijah ha-Levi, a Karaite traveller from the Crimea in 1655, wished to see in Jerusalem was not the Wailing Wall, but rather the Karaite synagogue of the city.18 The route of Karaite travellers from Eastern Europe always either started from the Crimea, or went through the Crimea (if a traveller was from the Karaite communities of Poland and Lithuania). From the Crimean ports of Caffa or Gezleve they normally trav-elled to Constantinople (Istanbul) where they were accommodated by the local Karaite community. Then they usually travelled by sea to Egypt where they stayed at the lodgings provided by the Karaite community of Cairo. From Cairo Karaite pilgrims usually reached Jerusalem by land.19

over the Desht-i Kypchak, when Kypchak was used as the lingua franca of the region. The earliest Karaite settlers (who were, undoubtedly, Kypchak speaking by that time) appeared in the territo-ries belonging to present-day Poland, Lithuania, Crimea and Western Ukraine in the late Middle Ages, not later than the 13th-15th centuries (for more information, see Karaite Judaism. A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources, ed. by M. Polliack, Leiden, Brill, 2003, 981 p.)

16 Karaim (a.k.a. “Karaimo-Kypchak / Qaraimo-Qipchaq”) belongs to the Kypchak languages of the Oguz-Kypchak sub-group of the Common Turkic languages belonging to the Turkic branch of the Altaic family of languages. For details see now Dan Shapira, “Miscellanea Judaeo-Turkica. Four Judaeo-Turkic Notes (Judaeo-Turkica IV)”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 27, 2002, pp. 475-96.

17 Tadeusz Czacki’s information that in 1790 the Karaite population of Poland and Lithuania stood at 4296 seems to be exaggerated, see: Tadeusz Czacki, Rozprawa o Żydach i Karaitach, Kraków, 1807, р. 145.

18 Moses ben Elijah Halevi, “Masa’ot”, in Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg, ed. by J. H. Gurland vol. 1, Lyck 1865, pp. 31-43; Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, op. cit., pp. 305-22.

19 Samuel ben David, “Masa’ot”, art. cit., pp. 1-30. English translation: “Jemsel the Karaite,” in Jewish

Figure 2 | Karaites of Caffa (Theodosia). A drawing by Auguste Raffet (1837).

308 mikhail kizilov

Before travelling further east, Karaite voyagers from Poland and Lithuania first had to reach the Crimea. The travels of one such Polish Karaite pilgrim, Joseph ben Yeshua from Derażno, was destined to be terminated in the Crimea. Having arrived in the Karaite community of Çufut Qal’eh he was soon accused of espionage—and ended up in a prison in Bahçesaray “in the Khan’s palace with the chain on the neck.” It is only after a three-month imprisonment that the unfortunate pilgrim was re-leased. The Khan (most likely, Mehmed Giray IV) confiscated the money which the Jewish pilgrim needed to travel to Jerusalem. Therefore, ben Yeshua could not travel any further and was forced to stay in Çufut Qal’eh for three years, where he studied the Torah with local sages. Thus, for him the Crimean imprisonment turned out to be a highly important part of his biography and religious education—but his wish to visit the Holy Land remained unsatisfied. The circumstances of his travels are known to us largely from the poem in the Galician dialect of the Karaim language entitled “Karanhy bulut” (“Black Cloud”). This seems to be a very interesting ex-ample of where a Jewish travel account was composed in the form of a poem—and in an exotic Judeo-Turkic language, in this case Karaim.20

Our survey of the accounts of East European Jewish travellers in the 16th and 17th centuries may be completed with the analysis of the travel account of Gedaliah of Siemiatycze (historical Poland; today Belarus). Gedaliah was a member of a group of the followers of Judah Hasid, a charismatic Jewish leader from the town of Shedlits (apparently, modern Siedlec in Poland). A group of 120 followers of Judah Hasid left Poland in 1699 and headed first to Frankfurt am Main. As a re-sult of their leader’s missionary activity, the group soon increased to 1500 people but only about a thousand of them reached Jerusalem in 1700. This shows how dangerous and unsafe it was to travel from Europe to the East in those times.21

travellers in the Middle Ages, op. cit., pp. 329-44. Accounts of Karaite travellers to the East and to Europe are highly important also for the history of geographic literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. See Benjamin ben Elijah, “Masa’ot”, art. cit., pp. 44-54; Joseph-Solomon Lucki [pron. ‘Łutski’], Iggeret teshu’at Yisra’el, Gezleve/Eupatoria [1840s]; Philip Miller, Karaite separatism in nineteenth-century Russia: Joseph Solomon Lutski’s epistle of Israel’s deliverance, Cincinnati, HUC Press, 1993, pp. 70-204.

20 The collection of the Hebrew MSS in the Bodleian library of Oxford contains a very interesting version of “Karanhy bulut” of the Crimean provenance (Bodleian library of Oxford, MS Heb. F.5, f. 5-8; cf. Adolf Neubauer and Arthur Ernest Cowley, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Clarendon, 1886, p. 140, no.2725: “Hymns in the Tatar language”). The slightly different version of this poem was found by me in the macuma (Turk. “copybook”) of Rafael ben Joshua Grigulewicz in Manuscript Division of the Lietuvos Mokslų Akademijos Biblioteka, Vilnius, F.305, no.220, f. 17r-20v. See also Jan Grzegorzewski, “Caraimica. Język Łach-Karaitów”, Rocznik Orientalistyczny, 2/2, 1916-1918, р. 268-70, 274.

21 Gedaliah of Siemiatycze, Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim, Berlin, n.p., 1716; cf. Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, op. cit., pp. 323-67.

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 309

This was perhaps the first large Jewish aliyah (emigration) to Palestine after the destruction of the Second Temple.

Travel accounts, their value and importance notwithstanding, provide us with in-formation largely about only one type of East European Jewish traveller: pilgrims to the Holy Land. Occasionally, travel accounts also provide information about the commercial activity of Jewish traders, types of goods, prices, and suchlike. I have found virtually no information in travel accounts about the involvement of Jews in the slave trade. Yet, as I have shown in my earlier research,22 Jews took an active part in this offshoot of trade—as sellers, buyers, intermediaries and even as objects of the slave trade. Some of the East European Jews were sent to negotiate purchase and redemption of the captives in remote European and Oriental countries. Highly interesting was the destiny of the 16th century merchant Meir Ashkenazi. He was ap-parently a native of Poland who moved to the Crimean port of Caffa together with his parents. He often travelled from the Crimea to Poland, Western Europe, Africa and the Near East on various trips of a political and commercial character. In 1567, for example, he delivered a group of slaves (prisoners of war) from Egypt to Gava (a port near Genoa). His destiny was rather tragic: during one of his travels, between the 15th and the 25th day of Tammuz (July) 1567, he was killed by corsairs near Dakhel in Upper Egypt along with all the other passengers on the ship.23 One of the letters of the Crimean vezir (minister) Sefer Gazı Ağa to the Polish chancellor Prażmowski mentioned that the Swedish captives seized in 1661 were sent to Poland under the escort of “my servant Dzinalny with a Jew Arslan.”24 It is interesting to note that this Jewish merchant whose Turkic name Arslan (“Lion”) shows his Crimean or Ottoman origin, was sent together with these captives to such a remote country as Poland. His mission, undoubtedly, was to negotiate monetary problems relating to

22 Mikhail Kizilov, “Slave Trade in the Early Modern Crimea from the Perspective of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources,” Journal of Early Modern History , 11/1-2, 2007, р. 1-31; id., “Slaves, Money Lenders, and Prisoner Guards: The Jews and the Trade in Slaves and Captives in the Crimean Khanate,” Journal of Jewish Studies, 58/2, 2007, р. 189-210.

23 On his biography see the testimony of the witness Elijah ben Nehemiah given before the board of rabbis in Safed in responsa of Moses of Trani (part 2, no. 78) (Herman Rosenthal, “Ashkenazi, Meir, of Kaffa (Crimea),” Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 2, NY-London 1902, pp. 199-200. For Polish documents, see: Maurycy Horn, “Udział Żydów w kontaktach dyplomatycznych i handlowych Polski i Litwy z zagranicą w XV-XVII w.,” Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 3-4, 1990, р. 7.

24 Pol. “poszyłam sługe swego Dzinalny z żydem Arsłanem” (Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych in Warsaw, AKW Dz.Tatarskie, k.61, t.155, no.299. O wyruszeniu na pomoc… oraz prośba o kon-woj… dla jencow szwiedskich pojmanych przez age w Polsce, f. 2). The Turkish name “Arslan” can also be found in the list of the members of the Karaite community of Caffa in the 16th century: Olexander Halenko, “Iudeiski hromady Osmanskoii Kefy seredyny XVI st.,” Skhodoznavstvo, 3-4, 1998, р. 59.

310 mikhail kizilov

the redemption fee for the Swedish captives. A slightly suspicious document pub-lished by B. Baranowski narrates a riveting story of two Galician Karaites25 who redeemed from Polish captivity a certain Tatar soldier, who later turned out to be a cousin of the kalga26 Agatumkiery from the Giray clan, the Tatar dynasty which had been ruling the Crimean Khanate. The story is highly interesting, but, taking into consideration Baranowski’s casual treatment of Karaite-related sources, one cannot be entirely sure of the veracity of this source and its interpretation by this scholar.27

It was also often the case that the Jews themselves were objects of the slave trade. Redemption of brethren-in-faith from harsh and unmerciful Muslim captivity was considered an elevated and noble deed in Jewish society of that time. One 17th century document calls this matter mitsvah gdolah (great commandment) and emphasizes the necessity of collecting tsedaqah (alms) for this purpose.28 The life and vicissitudes of the rabbi Moses ben Jacob ha-Goleh (the Exiled”) of Kiev (1440-1520), one of the most famous East European Jewish thinkers of that time, were closely related to the military campaigns of the Crimean Tatars. The rabbi was enslaved during the Tatar siege of Lida in 1506 and taken to the Crimean town of Qırım (Sulkhat). In spite of his bitter polemics with the Karaite leaders, Moses ben Jacob was redeemed through the joint efforts of the local Rabbanite and Karaite communities. After his release, the rabbi stayed in Caffa until the end of his days and became the leader of the local Rabbanite community, where he introduced a unified liturgical model.29 As has been mentioned above, it seems that it was the biography of Moses ben Jacob that “inspired” Gershon ben Eliezer to compose the Crimean part of his geographic treatise. As it was in the case of the rabbi Moses ha-Goleh, the Rabbanites and Karaites often forgot about their religious conflicts in order to save the lives of their religious brethren. A letter from Mordecai ben Samuel of Qırq Yer (i.e. Çufut Qal’eh) of 1677 largely deals with the problem of the release of the Karaite and Rabbanite captives kept in Constantinople. The Karaites

25 In addition to the Karaite communities of the Crimea, Lithuania, and Volhynia, there was also a small Karaite colony in Eastern Galicia (Halicz, Kukizów, Lwów, and a few smaller settlements).

26 Kalga (or kalgay) sultan was the second position in the Crimean Khanate after the Khan. Kalga’s main residence was in the town of Akmeçet (modern Simferopol’).

27 Bohdan Baranowski, “Przyczynki do stosunków Karaimów ze wschodem muzułmańskim,” Mysl Karaimska 12 (1939), pp. 11–19. Unfortunately, the veracity of this document cannot be verified; this document, as well as many other priceless materials of Polish archives disappeared in the flames of the Second World War and Warsaw ghetto uprising.

28 National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg F.946, Evr.I, Doc.I 23 (Doc.19).29 Sergei Zinberg, “Avraam Krymskii i Moisei Kievskii,” Evreiskaya starina, 11, 1924, pp. 101-109;

Golda Akhiezer, “The History of the Crimean Karaites during the Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries,” in Karaite Judaism, op. cit., р. 747-8.

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 311

of Çufut Qal’eh agreed to contribute to the release of the captives, mentioning, however, the fact that the Karaite community of Constantinople should also take part in redeeming captives.30

The Warsaw Archive for Old Documents (AGAD) contains a highly interesting document related to the release of the Polish Jew Zaczek (i.e. Isaac) from Crimean captivity. The dating of the document is slightly unclear (Mehmed Giray khan referred to in the document could be either Mehmed Giray IV (ruled 1641-1644, 1654-1666) or Mehmed Giray I (1514-1523)).31 This document is a letter about a certain Polish Jew Isaac (“Żyd naimie Zaczek”) of Kamieniec Podolski, who bor-rowed money from the Khan’s servant “Obrahim” (also a Jew?)32 in order to pay his ransom fee. Obrahim himself travelled to Poland in order to clarify the matter. This document as well as several others cited above shows the development of travel and trading routes between the Crimea, Poland, and countries of the East.

There is also some information on the role played by the East European Jews in the development of diplomatic contacts between Europe and Oriental countries. One of the first Polish ambassadors to the Crimean and Volga Khanates at the end of the fifteenth / beginning of the sixteenth centuries was Isaczko (Isaac) of Kraków. Isaac’s name and the privileges accorded to him for his diplomatic achieve-ments are mentioned in numerous Polish documents of this period.33 Another Polish Jew, the abovementioned Meir Ashkenazi, who subsequently emigrated from Poland to the Crimean Khanate, was appointed envoy of the Tatar khan to Kraków (Poland) in the mid-16th century.34 Oriental Jews, for their part, were often instrumental in the establishment of diplomatic contacts between European countries and the Orient.35 Some of them, including those of Karaite origin, were

30 National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg F.946, Evr.I, Doc.I 23 (Doc.19). In fact only one Rabbanite captive, Israel Nishbah ((הבשנ, is mentioned by name.

31 Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych in Warsaw, AKW Dz.Tatarskie, k.65, t.3, no.579. Przekład tu-reckiego listu Mehmed Gereja I chana krymskiego do kanclerza wielkiego koronnego. Prośba o zwrot pieniędzy za wykup pewnego Żyda… [1514-1523]; Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych in Warsaw, AKW Dz.Tatarskie, k.60, t.88, no.93. Skrócony przekład dwoch tureckich listów z Krymu do Polski [XVII w.] (in Polish). The full text of the document is published in M. Kizilov, “Slaves”, art. cit., р. 189-210.

32 The standard Muslim form of this name is Ibrahim, not Obrahim.33 Maurycy Horn, “Społeczność Żydowska w wielonarodowośćiowom Lwowie w 1356-1696,”

Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 1, 1991, pp. 10-11.34 H. Rosenthal, “Ashkenazi”, art. cit., pp. 199-200; M. Horn,“Udział”, art. cit., р. 7.35 Janina Morgensztern, “Pośrednictwo Żydów w nawiązywaniu nieoficjalnych kontaktów dyplo-

matycznych między dworem polskim i tureckim w 1590 r. (W świetle korespondencji Zygmunta III z Janem Zamoyskim)”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 10, 1981, pagination.

312 mikhail kizilov

even appointed ambassadors: two Karaites were sent from the Crimea to Moscow as envoys of the Crimean Khan in the 17th century.

For some reason the sources do not provide any information about itinerant Jewish physicians of Eastern European origin. From other documents we know that numerous West European Jewish physicians often travelled and offered their services in Eastern Europe. The most famous example for the 17th century would perhaps be Joseph Solomon ha-Rofe Delmedigo of Candia (Crete, 1591–1655), who stayed at the Radziwiłł court from 1619/20 to 1624/5. He was perhaps the most prominent foreign Jewish physician invited to Poland in the 17th century.36 In spite of the fact that there certainly were numerous Jewish physicians active in Eastern Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries,37 the sources do not provide any information about their travels to the East. The reason is that Eastern Europe was certainly a province from the standpoint of medical education—therefore services of East European Jewish physicians were not in high demand in the East.

To conclude, East European Jews—pilgrims, merchants, and diplomats—played an important role as intermediaries between Europe and the Orient in the 16th and the 17th centuries. Unfortunately, only some of them recorded their travel expe-riences in writing and official documentation on Jewish travellers is even more fragmented. Nevertheless, quite a few authors (e.g. Moses ben Israel Naftali Hirsch of Prague, and Gedaliah of Siemiatycze) described in detail the vicissitudes of their travels eastwards. One of them (Gershon ben Eliezer Halevi of Prague) com-posed an eloquent and beautiful account of his misfortunes in Tatar captivity and travels in the land of the Ten Tribes of Israel. Alas, a more careful analysis of his travel account testifies to the fact that it was not based on the author’s own eyewit-ness impressions, but on the works of other travellers and vivid Jewish legends about the Lost Tribes. Highly important are writings of the East European Karaite (non-Talmudic) Jews who left detailed descriptions of Jewish and Karaite com-munities on their way from the Crimea to Jerusalem (e.g. accounts by Samuel ben David, and Moses ben Elijah ha-Levi). For many Jews their travels to the East were quite a risky enterprise. To give an example, the Karaite poet Joseph ben Yeshua from Derażno was arrested by the Tatar authorities in the Crimea on his way

36 Isak Heilbronn, Die mathematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Anschauungen des Josef Salomo Delmedigo nach seinem “Sefer Elim”, Erlangen, Junge & Söhn, 1913, pagination.

37 See also Maurycy Horn, “Medycy nadworni władców polsko-litewskich w latach 1506-1572 (ze szczególnym uwzględnieniem lekarzy i chirurgów żydowskich)”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 1, 1989, р. 3-24.

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 313

to the Holy Land—and could not continue his travels. Meir Ashkenazi, a native of Poland and inhabitant of the Crimea, was killed by pirates in Upper Egypt. The exegete and Kabbalist Moses ben Jakob ha-Goleh of Kiev and the otherwise unknown Polish Jew Isaac were delivered to the Crimea as “live booty” of the bellicose Tatars—and hardly had any pleasant stories to tell about their uninvited travels there. These are only a few of the most interesting examples that one can find in written sources available to date.

The situation had considerably changed by the 18th and 19th centuries. In this pe-riod, with the development of sea and land transport and the growth of Zionist tendencies more and more East European Jews started travelling eastwards and describing their travel experiences. The analysis of travel sources of this period, however, requires a separate study.

314 mikhail kizilov

Bibliography

Archival Primary SourcesArchiwum Główne Akt Dawnych in Warsaw

-AKW Dz.Tatarskie, k.60, t.88, no.93. Skrócony przekład dwoch tureckich listów z Krymu do Polski [XVII w.]-AKW Dz.Tatarskie, k.61, t.155, no.299. (O wyruszeniu na pomoc… oraz prośba o konwoj… dla jencow szwiedskich pojmanych przez age w Polsce)-AKW Dz.Tatarskie, k.65, t.3, no.579. (Przekład tureckiego listu Mehmed Gereja I chana krymskiego do kanclerza wielkiego koronnego. Prośba o zwrot pieniędzy za wykup pew-nego Żyda… [1514-1523])

Bodleian library of Oxford:- MS Heb. F.5, f. 5-8 [The poem “Karanhy bulut” byYosef ben Yeshuah]

National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg:- F.946, Evr.I, Doc.I 23 (Doc.19)

Manuscript Division of the Lietuvos Mokslų Akademijos Biblioteka, Vilnius:-F.305, no.220, f. 17r-20v. [The poem “Karanhy bulut” byYosef ben Yeshuah]

Printed Primary SourcesAdler, E. (ed.), Jewish Travellers. London, Routledge, 1930, 391 p.

—, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, London, H. Frowde, 1907, 183 p.

—, Jewish Travellers in the Middle Ages: 19 Firsthand Accounts, New York, Dover, 1987, 391 p.

Benjamin ben Elijah, “Masa’ot”, in Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg, ed. by J. Gurland, Lyck, Rudolph Siebert, 1865, pp. 44-54.

Ben Zvi, I. (ed.), Galilot erets-Yisra’el im tirgum be-ivrit be-shem Iggeret ha-qodesh, Jerusalem, Rav Kuk, 1953, pagination.

Eisenstein, J.D. (ed.), Otsar masa’ot: A Collection of Itineraries by Jewish Travellers, New York, n.p. 1926; repr. Tel-Aviv 1969.

Gedaliah of Siemiatycze, Sha’alu shalom Yerushalayim, Berlin, n.p., 1716.

Gershon ben Eliezer Halevi of Prague, Galilot erets-Yisra’el, Amsterdam, Asher Shuht, 1705.

—, Galilot erets-Yisra’el, Fürth, 1691.

—, Galilot erets-Yisra’el, Lublin, 1634/5.

—, Iggeret ha-qodesh: galilot erets-Yisra’el, Grodno, 1796.

Lucki, J-S. [pron. ‘Łutski’], Iggeret teshu’at Yisra’el, Gezleve/Eupatoria [1840s].

Moses ben Elijah Halevi, “Masa’ot”, in Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg, ed. by J. H. Gurland, vol. 1, Lyck, 1865, pp. 31-43.

—, “Masa’ot”, in Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, ed. by Ya’ari Abraham, Tel-Aviv, n.p. 1946, pp. 305-322.

Moses ben Israel Naftali Hirsch Porges, Darkei Tzion, Amsterdam, 1650.

partie iii - between europe and the holy land 315

Petahyah of Ratisbon, Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon, who, in the latter end of the twelfth century, visited Poland, Russia, Little Tartary, the Crimea, Armenia, Assyria, Syria, the Holy Land, and Greece. Trans. Dr A. Benisch, London, Longman 1861.

Samuel ben David, “Masa’ot”, in Ginzei Yisra’el be-Sankt-Peterburg, ed. by J. Gurland, Lyck, Rudolph Siebert, 1865, pp. 1-30.

Samuel ben David, “Jemsel the Karaite”, Jewish Travellers, ed. by E. Adler, London, Routledge, 1930, pp. 329-244.

Simcha ben Pesakh of Brześć/Brest, Sibuv qivrei ha-tsaddiqim. Amsterdam, n.p., n.d. (German translation: Wege nach Zion. Reiseberichte und Briefe aus Erez Jissrael in drei Jahrhunderten. Berlin, Schocken Verlag 1935, pagination.)

Ya’ari, A. (ed.), Masa’ot Erets Yisra’el, Tel-Aviv, 1946; repr. Tel Aviv, 1996.

Secondary SourcesAkhiezer, G., “The History of the Crimean Karaites during the Sixteenth to Eighteenth

Centuries”, in Karaite Judaism. A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources, ed. by M. Polliack, Leiden, Brill, 2003, р. 747-748.

Balard, M., “Gênes et la mer Noire (xiiie-xve siècles)”, Revue Historique, 270, 1983, р. 31-54.

Baranowski B., “Przyczynki do stosunków Karaimów ze wschodem muzułmańskim”, Myśl Karaimska, 12, 1939, pp. 11–19.

Bernstein, S., “Ha-mahzor ke-minhag Kafa, toldotav ve-hitpathuto”, in Samuel K. Mirsky Jubilee Volume, New York, Jubilee Committee, 1958, pagination.

Czacki, T., Rozprawa o Żydach i Karaitach, Kraków, Éd. 1807, pagination.

Golobič, E., “Armenians and Jews in Medieval Lvov: Their Role in Oriental Trade 1400-1600”, Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 20, 1979, р. 345-388

Grzegorzewski, J., “Caraimica. Język Łach-Karaitów”, Rocznik Orientalistyczny, 2/2, 1916-1918, р. 252-296.

Halenko, O., “Iudeiski hromady Osmanskoii Kefy seredyny XVI st.”. Skhodoznavstvo, 3-4, 1998, pp. 39-62.

Heilbronn, I., Die matematischen und naturwissenschaftlichen Anschauungen des Josef Salomo Delmedigo nach seinem “Sefer Elim”, Erlangen, Junge & Söhn, 1913, pagination.

Horn, M., “Społeczność Żydowska w wielonarodowośćiowom Lwowie w 1356-1696”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 1, 1991, pp. 10-11.

—, “Medycy nadworni władców polsko-litewskich w latach 1506-1572 (ze szczególnym uwzględ-nieniem lekarzy i chirurgów żydowskich)”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 1, 1989, р. 3-24.

—, “Udział Żydów w kontaktach dyplomatycznych i handlowych Polski i Litwy z zagranicą w XV-XVII w.”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 3-4, 1990, pagination.

—, “Slave Trade in the Early Modern Crimea from the Perspective of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Sources”, Journal of Early Modern History, 11/1-2, 2007, р. 1-31

—, “Slaves, Money Lenders, and Prisoner Guards: The Jews and the Trade in Slaves and Captives in the Crimean Khanate”, Journal of Jewish Studies, 58/2, 2007, р. 189-210.

316 mikhail kizilov

Kizilov, M., “Hebrew and Yiddish Travel Writing”, in A Bibliography of East European Travel Writing on Europe, ed. by W. Bracewell and A. Drace-Francis, (East Looks West, vol. 3), Budapest-New York, CEU, 2008, pp. 229-241.

Miller, P., Karaite separatism in nineteenth-century Russia: Joseph Solomon Lutski’s epistle of Israel’s deliverance, Cincinnati, Hebrew Union College Press, 1993, 252 p.

Morgensztern, J., “Pośrednictwo Żydów w nawiązywaniu nieoficjalnych kontaktów dy-plomatycznych między dworem polskim i tureckim w 1590 r. (W świetle korespondencji Zygmunta III z Janem Zamoyskim)”, Biuletyn Żydowskiego Instytutu Historycznego, 10, 1981, pp. 37-49.

Neubauer, A., and Cowley, A. E., Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, Clarendon, 1886, 2 vols.

Polliack, M. (ed.), Karaite Judaism. A Guide to Its History and Literary Sources, Leiden, Brill, 2003, 981 p.

Rosenthal, H., “Ashkenazi, Meir, of Kaffa (Crimea)”, Jewish Encyclopedia, vol. 2, New York-London, 1902, pp. 199-200.

Schur, N., Jerusalem in Pilgrims and Travellers’ Accounts: A Thematic Bibliography of Western Christian Itineraries 1300-1917, Jerusalem, Ariel Pub. House, 1980, 151 p.

Shapira, D., “Miscellanea Judaeo-Turkica. Four Judaeo-Turkic Notes (Judaeo-Turkica IV)”, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam, 27, 2002, pp. 475-496.

Spitzer, S., and Komoróczy, G. (eds.), Héber kútforrások Magyarország és a magyarországi zsi-dóság történetéhez a kezdetektõl 1686-ig, Budapest, MTA Judaisztikai Kutatocsoport, Osiris Kiado, 2003, pagination.

Ya’ari, A. (ed.), Sheluhei Erets Yisra’el, Jerusalem, Rav Kuk, 1951, pagination.

Zinberg, S., “Avraam Krymskii i Moisei Kievskii”, Evreiskaya starina, 11, 1924, pp. 101-109.