The Travels of Benjamin of Tudela

When the world was small, surrounded by the darkness of the unknown; when streets were narrow and dirty, in towns surrounded by walls; when few knew how to read and write; when brigands lurked alongside roads that were treacherous and few, and bridges over rivers were rare, and travel was laborious and dangerous; when a man setting out on a journey never knew if he would return alive-in those days a traveler had to be brave, resourceful, and lucky to survive. One such traveler was Benjamin of Tudela. In the year 1159, more than one hundred years before Marco Polo, Benjamin left his native town of Tudela in northern Spain on a fourteen-year journey through most of the then-known world. He was the greatest medieval Jewish traveler.

Working from the original Hebrew, as well as from other sources on the period, Uri Shulevitz has adapted Benjamin's story for young readers. Shulevitz tells not only of the marvelous places Benjamin visited