Travel Account

The places in the land of Israel, and the graves of the righteous that are there, which were composed by R. Jacob ben R. Nathaniel ha-Kohen when he entered the land of Israel.

I, Jacob ben R. Nathaniel ha-Kohen, traveled—with great difficulty, but with the help of the Holy One—to the land of Israel. There, I saw the graves of our righteous ancestors in Hebron, the grave of Abner ben Ner, near the well of our patriarch Abraham; [the grave of] Jonah ben Amittai the prophet in Kiryat-Hebron-Arba; and the grave of Hannah and the grave of Rachel near Jerusalem, a league and a half along the road to Jericho; two villages, Ephrath and Bethlehem; and in Jerusalem, the tower of David and the sanctuary and its courtyard. [ . . . ]

About two leagues from there were the graves of our ancestors in Tiberias, caves as tall as a house, for so they used to bury them, four by four, like web and woof, four cubits by four cubits, and covered with whitewash. The non-Jews remove them because they are looking for the threads of gold they used to sew into their shrouds, and every bier has written on it: “So-and-so son of So-and-so, may his soul be bound up in the bundle of life.”

When he left Provence, he saw that the uncircumcised were lighting many candles [at a shrine, perhaps]. He said to them, “Who is this?” They told him, “A righteous Jew who was a healer and helped many barren women.” He said to them, “Fools! Why are you giving a Jew such honor?” And he took a stone and threw it on the ground. When he went to pick up his hand to throw another—he was riding on a horse—he immediately fell off and died. The generals and the priests agreed. It did not happen to him because of the Jew, but because he acted wrongly in touching the master of May-His-Name-Be-Blotted-Out.¹ For that reason, He got angry and killed him. All this is in front of the city. [ . . . ]

Joseph the righteous [is buried] in a cave with two coffins, where they light candles every evening. A Nubian went in with the uncircumcised and said to them, “Who is this?” They told him, “Joseph son of Jacob.” He had an axe in his hand and hacked at the grave—the mark is still there—and died without a struggle. They brought him out dead. In a nearby cave is buried King Baasha of Israel.

High on a mountain in the middle of a forest is the grave of Zipporah. A lion guards it, and no one may enter there and cut trees from that forest. Once a non-Jew went in there thoughtlessly, with a wagon and two oxen, and took some wood and went home. The lion came after him and killed him and the two oxen and went back to the grave.

Many other graves are there, and there is another big cave there, which some say is the cave of Jonah ben Amittai, as well as other, unknown caves.

It is four leagues to Acre, and there, in the middle of the gate, is the grave of Eleazar the Hasmonean. The great abomination [possibly the great mosque] that is in Acre, they say, was once Eleazar’s synagogue.

In Caesarea is the cave of the Ten Martyrs. In the place where they were killed is a great marble stone, and in front of the cave of the Ten Martyrs is buried a non-Jew. He came in a dream to everyone in the city and cried out to them, “Get me out of there! There is no help for me! They are beating me with spits of molten iron. For,” he said to them, “in this cave are twelve angels in prayer shawls who do not resemble human beings.” That non-Jew was a painter, but the non-Jews didn’t care if all the painters died. They said the great marble stone was Caesar’s throne. No grass will ever grow in the spot where the righteous were killed. And in the midst of the ancient wall is the grave of another righteous man, but it is not known who he was. [ . . . ]

In Alexandria, Egypt, I saw the synagogue [bet midrash] of King Alexander. It has 365 pillars, one for each day of the year. They are thirty spans in circumference and four cubits tall. There are two sarcophagi, one above and one below, resembling the four-sided animals: one with a human face, one with the face of an eagle, one with the face of a lion, and one with the face of an ox [see Ezekiel 1]. There he would study with his teacher Aristotle. There is a tower at the edge of the sea, called in Arabic manara [lighthouse]. They light a fire on top of it at night above to keep boats from going astray. The fire can be seen as far away as Africa, Provence, and Acre. It is so beautifully made that there are two riders on horses atop it. There is also an Ishmaelite mosque for those who travel by sea. In the home of a Jew, the ḥazan of the synagogue, there is an obelisk of Bityah, the daughter of Pharaoh, matching the one in Raamses [Egypt]. It is the likeness of a woman, twenty cubits tall, with a basket on her head, and clothes and a small boy sitting in the basket, all made of black stone. The king wanted to take it out and set it up in the marketplace. Water came forth until all Egypt was almost drowned; when it stopped, it had barely reached her shins.