Obadia son of Abraham of Bertinoro

Italian Rabbinical scholar who is well known as the most famous Mishnah commentator whose family and he himself came from Bertinoro in Forli region in Italy. In the autumn 1486 he started his journey to Jerusalem from his life town Citta di Castello through, Rome, Salerno and Naples. There he embarked in a ship in his voyage to the Land of Israel a long the Mediterranean basin, via Palermo and Messina in Sicily, and Rhodes to Alexandria in Egypt. From there he went by land to Cairo, and from there via Sinai peninsula he went to the Land of Israel. The first place he passed in that country was Gaza in the south. From there he went northward to Hebron in his way to Jerusalem where he arrived two days before Passover (March the 25th) 1488 where he settled and became a prominent leader in the small Jewish community.

His journey as well as his first steps in his new resident are described in a comprehensive letter was sent by him to his father in Italy, which was written six months after his arrival in Jerusalem. This letter was printed with another letter was written by him also in Jerusalem a year later in Darkei Zion for the first time in Kolomea 1886 (as we will see below). In that description he gives a wonderful Geographical and climate view of the maritime and land route he passed in his journey as well as on the daily life in the ship or the caravan. He also draws attention to the nice panoramic view of the places he was staying for a short while in his journey. He also emphasizes his own impression in everywhere he found a Jewish community. He also left his impression about the Jewish life (size of the community, the leadership, economic and spiritual life, etc.).

His journey lasted approximately a year and a half. As we have seen, his journey began with a voyage from Naples to Alexandria in Egypt, traveling via a circuitous route which obliged him to spend extended periods in various ports. He explains this by referring to the “gezera” (decree), issued by the senate of Venice in 1429. This anti-Jewish measure was aimed at preventing Jews from traveling to the Land of Israel. It was a retaliatory act in response to the expropriation from the Franciscans of Mt. Zion, the burial place of David, and the Church of the Holy Spirit above it by the Muslims, ostensibly advised and pressured by Jews. According to Christian tradition, the church was the site of the Coenaculum, the room where Jesus partook of the Last Supper. Its seizure in 1428 led to the imposition of “gezera” the following year for an unknown period of time, until control of the site eventually reverted to the Christians. For this reason those travelling from Italy and the countries in eastern and central Europe attempted to reach the Land of Israel by alternative routes. Rabbi Ovadia writes that he sailed to the east at the autumn of 1486, following an indirect course from the port of Naples via Sicily, Rhodes, and thence to the port of Abu Qir, nearby Alexandria in Egypt. He talks of the severe conflict between the Jews of Jerusalem and ‘priests of Francisco,’ and briefly describes its background:

On Mount Zion, near the Sepulchre of the Kings, the Franciscans have a large Church. The Sepulchre of the Kings also belonged to them a long time ago, but a rich Ashkenazi, who came to Jerusalem, wished to purchase the graves from the King, and so involved himself in strife with the ecclesiastics, and the Arabs then took the graves away from them and have ever since retained them in their own keeping. When it became known in Venice that the graves had been taken from the Catholics through Jews who had come from Christian lands, an edict was published that no Jew might travel to Jerusalem through Venice, but this edict is now repealed, and every year Jews come in the Venetian galleys and even in the pilgrim ships, for there is really no safer and shorter way than by these ships. I wish I had known all this while I was still in those parts, I would not then have remained so long on the journey. The galleys perform the voyage from Venice here in forty days at most.

(Adler, Jewish Travellers, p. 243; J. R. Magdalena, Relatos de viajes, pp. 140-141).

In other Jewish sources from that period, we see that a maritime voyage from Venice to the Near East (Egypt, Syria or the Land of Israel) lasted more or less the same time. But it depends on the climate conditions and some other reasons.

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