In Navarra, a similar move is apparent in the branding of Tudela, which was, for some years, on the borderland between Christian and Muslim states, and home to several notable medieval writers and scholars, such as
Benjamin of Tudela, known for documenting his travels all over the Middle East.
In the book written by the medieval Jewish traveller par excellence,
Benjamin of Tudela he expresses it with these words (4): "All Israel is dispersed in every land, and he who does not further the gathering of Israel will not meet with happiness nor live with Israel.
After the Caliph's disappearance in the mountains around Cairo, the Druze moved north, where Jewish explorer
Benjamin of Tudela found them during his travels in the 12th century.
The author explores 18 classics of Jewish literature to illustrate Jewish thought and experience over a period of 2,500 years: the books of Deuteronomy and Esther, The Exposition of Laws by Philo of Alexandria, The Jewish War by Flavius Josephus, Pirkei Avot, the Itinerary of
Benjamin of Tudela, the Kuzari by Yehuda Halevi, The Guide of the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides, the Zohar, the Tsenerene and the Memoirs of GlEckel of Hameln, Theological-Political Treatise by Baruch Spinoza, the Autobiography of Solomon Maimon, Jerusalem by Moses Mendelssohn, the Tales of Nachman of Bratslav, The Jewish State and Old New Land by Theodor Herzl, and Tevye the Dairyman by Sholem Aleichem.
By contrast,
Benjamin of Tudela (1907) is principally interested in recording the distance between cities and the size of the Jewish populations that lived there.
Writers such as
Benjamin of Tudela in his Sefer ha-Massa'ot ('Book of Travels'; mid-twelfth century) wrote an itinerary of the journey from Europe to Jerusalem, focusing largely on visits to holy sites but also reporting on toponyms, distances, populations (Jewish or otherwise), commerce, and trade.
It seems that these writers were not personally familiar with the appearance of the mountains and may have based themselves on the description recorded by
Benjamin of Tudela, a twelfth-century traveler, who wrote: "On Mount Gerizim there are springs, gardens, and orchards.
Benjamin of Tudela, the great Jewish traveler of the Middle Ages, who passed through Narbonne on his way to the Orient in the 12th century, described Narbonne as "mistress of Hebraic law," with Jews there of "the race of David" who possess "great goods" under the protection of the princes of the country.
Chapter Three, "Tricksters and Travels," discusses several major world travelers who popularized the idea of the lost tribes, especially Eldad the Danite (late 800s C.E.) and the Spanish Jew
Benjamin of Tudela (late 1100s C.E.).