Jeanette M.
Fregulia
Book Review
Martin Jacobs, Reorienting
the East, Jewish Travelers to the Medieval Muslim World. University of
Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia, 2014), 344 pp. ISBN: 978-0-8122-4622-3
1> In search of adventure,
spiritual enlightenment, economic gain, or just to satisfy their curiosity,
medieval and early modern travelers ventured far from home. Many of these sources are familiar, in the
thirteenth century Marco Polo ventured east to the court of Kublai Khan. A century later, John Mandeville a century
later likely made it no further than a library. By the fifteenth century, the reach of
Europeans travelers spanned large parts of the globe. In Reorienting the East, Jewish Travelers
to the Medieval Muslim World the author Martin Jacobs has discovered a rich
new source in the genre of travel narratives, accounts of Jewish travelers in
the Islamic world, primarily the Near East.
In an engaging and scholarly consideration of twenty-three narratives,
both factual and imaginary penned between the eleventh century and the early
fourteenth century Jacobs interrogates the sources for clues as to Jewish
travelers interacted with the foreign cultures of the Near Eastern Muslim
world, the literary tropes they used to described the differences between
themselves and the people they met, and ways that travel in the Islamic world
contributed, or not, to “Jewish reflections on identity, community, and home.”
(11) Seeking to illuminate how Jewish
travelers experienced the Muslim world, the author highlights where their
points of view where they converge and diverge, and reveals changing
perceptions in Medieval and early modern Muslim-Jewish relations. Jacobs also provides a fresh new contribution
to the genre by placing the narratives within the much more modern ideology of
Orientalism, pondering if these writings “foreshadow later imperialism without
necessarily enabling it.” (11) In a nod
to postcolonial studies, Jacobs searches the texts for clues that the writers
tended toward an “othering” of the Muslim world. Mindful that travel narratives tell readers
more about the author than the people and places that are the subjects of their
writing, the texts selected by the author reveal much about the worldview of
the writers, and therefore offer insight into the universe of Medieval European
Jews.
2> Firmly situating the texts
in the history of the eras in which they were produced, broadly between the
Crusades and the Age of Exploration, Jacobs provides relevant detail about the
travelers themselves including place of origin, occupation, and reason from
travel, offering clues about the writers themselves, as travel narratives in
the main tell modern readers more about the author than the people and places
encountered. In the pages we meet more
well-known travelers such as Benjamin Tudela, writing sometime before 1174, and
the more obscure including the Italian Jewish traveler Obadiah of Bertinoro,
writing in 1495 just a few short years after Christopher Columbus first set
sail. Further, the author does not
ignore those who engaged in what Jacobs’ terms “imaginary travel” (43), as even
fictive texts do not negate the significance of travel narratives as a source of
literature and history. As Jacobs’ illustrates from his chosen manuscripts both
the home culture and the foreign one intersect on the page. The author also gives
some attention to the more familiar accounts of Christian travelers, as Jewish
narratives were produced alongside the Christian ones, although it is only now
with Jacobs’ book that the former have received the detailed consideration they
deserve.
3> Organizationally, the book
is broadly divided into three parts.
Part One examines the travelers themselves, their writings, motivations,
destinations, and the distinctive challenges of travel in the Levant. Part Two looks at accounts of places,
particularly Palestine as for most of the writers in this book the Holy Land
was the final destination. The third and
final the section considers Jewish encounters with non-Europeans living in the
East, particularly Muslims, but also Christians, Near Eastern Jews, Druze,
Turks, and those living “beyond the rivers of Cush” (196) (possibly Ethiopia or
the Upper Nile).
4> The success of Jacobs’
books lies significantly with his sensitivity to the nuances of language and
expression in his primary sources, which results in convincing analysis. Taking readers through where the authors
concur and where they depart, Jacobs reminds his readers that although the
travelers shared a faith background, Judaism, they were far from monolithic in
their views of Muslims and others residing in the Near East and beyond. For example, Jacob’s notes how Jewish
pilgrimage itineraries from the early Mamluk period present a more favorable
view of the region as sacred to Muslims as well Jews as the author “acknowledge(s)
Galilee’s Islamic religious landscape,” (114).
Jacob’s gives attention to changing attitudes and a rise of anti-Islamic
sentiment, such as R. Moses Basola who asserts that Muslims “usurped a Jewish
holy place” (115) when referring to the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem. Jacobs notes where the authors gave in to
stereotypes, as David ha-Re’uveni, ca. 1523-1527, did when describing the
peoples of present-day Sudan and Ethiopia in terms of “prevalent stereotypes of
exoticism: nudity and colorful
jewelry.”(197), and Benjamin Tudela’s” infidel Turks” (195). The author also
notes where the travelers resisted prevailing notions, for example when a
sixteenth century travel comments on the beauty of the Islamic shrine built
over the tomb of Jonah (114). Finally, the author invites readers into a better
understanding of how European Jewish travelers perceived Jews living in the
Near East, and the ways in which this informed notions of their own identity.
5> Another strength of the
book, is Jacobs’ acknowledgment of the wonder travelers of all faiths
experienced. Echoing the work of Stephen
Greenblatt who takes up the subject of wonder in Marvelous Possessions, the
Wonder of the New World as part of the European traveler experience,
regardless of faith, particularly when encountering the non-European others. Jacobs echoes this important point explaining
“medieval travel literature is inclined to marvel at the wonders and curious
sites of foreign place.”(137) One
effective example of this comes from the descriptions of Damascus in Petahyah
of Regensburg, who wrote prior to 1187, “If paradise lies on earth, then
Damascus is paradise.” (138) Jacobs goes
on to discuss what the Massa’ot and other Jewish writings share with the Muslim
texts of the same cities.
6> By the end of the book, the
reader discovers that the author’s title gives an important clue to his conclusion,
that in their narratives the writers “reoriented” (4) the prevailing Christian
worldview, decentering the West as the pinnacle of world civilization. He also found that, in the end, the writers
reveal how their travels led to “mingled identities: European and Jewish, Western and Eastern.”
(214) To the question of Orientalism,
the author notes finding no evidence of this in these pre-modern travel
writings.
7> My reservations about the
text are few. I might have liked a bit
more attention paid to how, if at all, the texts of Jewish writers were part of
travel literature as commodities by the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, at
which time these literary productions enjoyed such a great popularity with a
European audience that they became part of the social milieu of curiosity,
including the collection of oddities and the texts that described them. This is does not constitute a criticism as
much as a nod to my own interest. I
might also question the use of Medieval Jewish travel writers as the book moves
all the way into the early sixteenth century, when the Middle Ages had given
way to the early modern world, particularly an Age of Exploration when travel
began to take on much more imperialistic goals.
Finally, I found the series of questions that began each chapter, and
interspersed throughout, thought-provoking if somewhat distracting. At times the focus of my reading became more
concerned with counting the questions and searching for direct answers, as
opposed to concentrating on how the author answered them. Again, these are
minor points in a book with little room for criticism. That said, Martin Jacobs does successfully
answer the fundamental questions he raises at the beginning, and those posed
subsequently, effectively analyzing the sources to illuminate how European
Jewish writers navigated the cultures of the Near Eastern world to which they
traveled, and how they described people different from themselves, for good or
ill.
8> As quite familiar with the
writings of non-Jewish travelers this book filled a significant gap in my own
knowledge. For the valuable quality of
its scholarship and for its smart prose, Martin Jacobs’ book will interest
scholars of both literature and history.
9> While not an expressed
intent of the author, this book serves as a reminder that intercultural and interfaith
relations have a history, and that traveler narratives provide important
insight into this history. The events of
the day notwithstanding, travel writings such as those presented here
illuminate admiration and contention, and remind us that human relations are
punctuated by periods of animosity, respect, cooperation, and conflict.
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Jeanette M.
Fregulia
is Associate Professor of History at Carroll College in Helena, Montana. She
holds an MA in Middle East Studies from the University of London and a PhD in
Renaissance History from the University of Nevada, Reno. Her research interests
center on women, commerce, and trade in early modern Italy and the Mediterranean.
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APPOSITIONS:
Studies in Renaissance / Early Modern
Literature and Culture,
http://appositions.blogspot.com/, ISSN: 1946-1992,
Volume Eight (2015): Dialogues & Exchanges
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