- Petachiah of Ratisbon
Petachiah of Ratisbon, also known as Petachiah ben Yakov, Moses Petachiah, and Petachiah of Regensburg, was a
Bohemia nrabbi of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries CE. He is best known for his extensive travels throughoutEastern Europe , theCaucasus , and theMiddle East .Petachiah was born in
Ratisbon (nowRegensburg ),Bavaria . He was the brother of Rabbi Yitzhak ha-Lavan ("the White") ben Yaakov, a renownedJewish jurist. During his childhood he was probably tutored by such scholars asJudah the Pious ("Yehuda ben Shmuel"). He was the author of several glosses on theTalmud . As a young man he left Ratisbon, a city whose Jewish community was so renowned for its piety and learning that it was sometimes called the "Jewish Athens", and settled in Prague.The date of his travels is uncertain. He probably set out from Prague sometime between 1170 and 1180, and was certainly in
Jerusalem prior to 1187, since he describes it as being under the control of theLatin Kingdom of Jerusalem . As Judah the Pious is supposed to have written the surviving edition of Petachiah's travelogue, he must have returned to Ratisbon prior to that sage's death in 1217.Petachiah traveled east from Bohemia, throughPoland ,Ruthenia , southernRussia (which he calledKedar ), and theCrimea . He describes the remnants of theKhazars and the earlyCrimean Karaite community. He then went south through theKipchak khanates and the Caucasus intoArmenia , sojourning for a while inNisibis . From there he travelled toMesopotamia , visitingNineveh ,Sura ,Pumbedita , andBaghdad before moving on to Persia. Turning westward, he journeyed up theEuphrates and intoSyria , visitingAleppo andDamascus . He travelled on to theLand of Israel , visiting holy sites in theGalilee andJudea , from whence he may have taken to the sea, because the next place he describes isGreece . From there, presumably, he returned home via theBalkans .The date of Petachiah's death is unknown.
ee also
*
Benjamin of Tudela
*Radhanites ources
*A. Benisch. "Travels of Petachia of Ratisbon" (with English translation.) London, 1856.
External links
* [http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupid?key=olbp26098 Travels of Rabbi Petachia of Ratisbon] , online version of a bilingual 1856 edition.
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