JEWISH PILGRIMS TO PALESTINE.
By Marcus N. Adler, M.A.
In response to the desire expressed by the Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund, I have much pleasure in furnishing a short account of the works of the early Jewish travellers in the East, and I propose also to give extracts from some of their writings which have reference to Palestine.
Even prior to the destruction of the Second Temple, Jews were settled in most of the known countries of antiquity, and kept up communication with the land of their fathers. Passages from the Talmud prove that the sage Rabbi Akiba, who led the insurrection of the Jews against Hadrian, had visited many countries, notably Italy, Gaul, Africa, Asia Minor, Persia, and Arabia. The Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds, the Midrashim and other Jewish writings up to the ninth century, contain innumerable references to the geography of Palestine. I would refer those who wish full information on this branch of the subject to Dr. A. Neubauer's valuable work "La Géographie du Talmud" (see also "Jewish Quarterly Review," vol. iv, p. 690).
In the year 797, Charlemagne sent an embassy to the powerful Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid, and it was Isaac the Jew who brought back a gracious reply, coupled with rich presents, from the Caliph. As a result of this mission learned Rabbis were despatched from Babylon, and they established schools of learning in Western Europe.
At the end of the ninth century, one Eldad the Danite, probably a native of Palestine or Babylon, visited the various Jewish settlements in Arabia, North Africa, and Spain, and represented that he belonged to the Tribe of Dan; he gave circumstantial accounts of the lost ten tribes, and also details as to the extensive settlements in Æthiopia and South Arabia of his own tribe, and of the tribes of Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. He had likewise much to say about the descendants of Moses and the River Sambatyon. His writings have come down to the present day, but are considered by competent authorities to be devoid of historical truth. For a full account respecting Eldad I would refer the reader to a series of articles contributed by the erudite Dr. A. Neubauer to vol. i of the "Jewish Quarterly Review," entitled 'Where are the Ten Tribes?' (vide pp. 14, 95, 185, and 408).
In the middle of the tenth century, Chisdai, the Jewish Minister to the Moorish Court at Cordova, was able to communicate by means of Jewish travellers with the King of the Khozars, a people who dwelt between the Euxine and the Caspian Sea, and who held the southern part of Russia, including the Crimea, under subjection. The whole nation had embraced the Jewish religion, and the epistle from the
