Ma’agal tov ha-shalem (The Good Journey)

Ḥayim Joseph David Azulai

Second Half of the 19th Century

And in the City of London we went to the Fort which is called the Tower, and there I saw lions and an eagle one hundred years old and a great snake from India and another snake and other wild beasts in iron chains, and I also saw a room perhaps fifty cubits long and more, divided into many chambers, the walls between which are guns and weapons most…

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Creator Bio

Ḥayim Joseph David Azulai

1724–1806

Born in Jerusalem to a Sephardic rabbinical family, Ḥayim Joseph David Azulai was a prominent rabbinic scholar, proficient in Talmud, Kabbalah, and Jewish history. He was sent as an emissary to Europe and North Africa starting in 1753 or 1755, to raise funds for the small and beleaguered Jewish communities of Palestine. This did not stop him from visiting zoos, palaces, and gardens as he traversed Europe, Africa, and the Middle East and recorded the details of each place and its people.  Interested in the history of rabbinical literature, he wrote prolifically; his works included a literary diary, in which he recorded ideas in Jewish history, scholarship, and folklore that occurred to him on his travels. From 1778 (after one of his missions) until his death, he lived in Livorno (Leghorn), Italy.

Related Guide

Travel Writing, 1750–1880

The proliferation of the press and travel by steamship (and toward the end of the period, railroad) brought descriptions of far-flung parts of the world and reports about Jews living in them from one corner of the globe to another.

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