Introduction Travels to the “Holy Land:” Perceptions, Representations and Narratives Eds. by Serena Di Nepi, Arturo Marzano Issue n. 6, December 2013 QUEST N. 6 QUEST. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History Journal of Fondazione CDEC Editors Michele Sarfatti (Fondazione CDEC, managing editor), Tullia Catalan (Università di Trieste), Cristiana Facchini (Università Alma Mater, Bologna), Marcella Simoni (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia), Guri Schwarz (Università di Pisa), Ulrich Wyrwa (Zentrum für Antisemitismusforschung, Berlin). Editorial Assistant Laura Brazzo (Fondazione CDEC) Editorial Advisory Board Ruth Ben Ghiat (New York University), Paolo Luca Bernardini (Università dell’Insubria), Dominique Bourel (Université de la Sorbonne, Paris), Michael Brenner (Ludwig-Maximilians Universität München), Enzo Campelli (Università La Sapienza di Roma), Francesco Cassata (Università di Genova), David Cesarani (Royal Holloway College, London), Roberto Della Rocca (DEC, Roma), Lois Dubin (Smith College, Northampton), Jacques Ehrenfreund (Université de Lausanne), Katherine E. Fleming (New York University), Anna Foa (Università La Sapienza di Roma), François Guesnet (University College London), Alessandro Guetta (INALCO, Paris), Stefano Jesurum (Corriere della Sera, Milano), András Kovács (Central European University, Budapest), Fabio Levi (Università degli Studi di Torino), Simon Levis Sullam (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia), Renato Mannheimer (ISPO, Milano), Giovanni Miccoli (Università degli Studi di Trieste), Dan Michman (Yad Vashem, Jerusalem), Michael Miller (Central European University, Budapest), Alessandra Minerbi (Fondazione CDEC Milano), Liliana Picciotto (Fondazione CDEC, Milano), Micaela Procaccia (MIBAC, Roma), Marcella Ravenna (Università di Ferrara), Milena Santerini (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milano), Perrine Simon-Nahum (EHESS, Paris), Francesca Sofia (Università Alma Mater di Bologna), David Sorkin (CUNY, New York), Emanuela Trevisan Semi (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venezia), Christian Wiese (Goethe- Universität Frankfurt am Main). QUEST. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History Journal of Fondazione CDEC ISSN: 2037-741X via Eupili 8, 20145 Milano Italy Reg. Trib. Milano n. 403 del 18/09/2009 P. IVA: 12559570150 tel 003902316338 fax 00390233602728 www.quest-cdecjournal.it [email protected] Cover image credit Timothy Gabashvili, View of Jerusalem, in “Pilgrimage to Mount Athos, Constantinople and Jerusalem, 1755-1759” II QUEST N. 6 Contents FOCUS Serena Di Nepi, Arturo Marzano Introduction: Travels to the “Holy Land:” Perceptions, Representations and Narratives p. V-XV Yaron Ben-Naeh “Thousands great saints:” Evliya Çelebi in Ottoman Palestine p. 1 Paolo Maggiolini Images, Views and Landscapes of the Holy Land. Catholic and Protestant Travels to Ottoman Palestine during the 19th Century p. 19 Simona Merlo Travels of Russians to the Holy Land in the 19th Century p. 48 Jennifer Michaels An Unusual Traveler: Ida Pfeiffer’s Visit to the Holy Land in 1842 p. 68 Guy Galazka Stillness and Motion: Depicting the Urban Landscape of Palestine in the 19th Century p. 90 Milette Shamir Encounters of a Third Kind: Mark Twain, William C. Prime and Protestant American Holy Land Narratives p. 116 Ilia Rodov “With Eyes towards Zion:” Visions of the Holy Land in Romanian Synagogues p. 138 Arturo Marzano Visiting British Palestine: Zionist Travelers to Eretz Israel p. 174 Nina Fischer Graphic Novels Explore an (Un-)Holy Land p. 201 Dana Hercbergs, Chaim Noy Beholding the Holy City: Changes in the Iconic Representation of Jerusalem in the 21th Century p. 232 p. 237 III QUEST N. 6 DISCUSSION Maria Stella Botticini, Zvi Eckstein, The Chosen Few: How Education Shaped Jewish History, 70-1492 by Sergio Della Pergola p. 264 by Cristiana Facchini p. 272 REVIEWS Pál Hatos and Attila Novák (eds.), Between Minority and Majority. Hungarian and Jewish/Israeli Ethnical and Cultural Experiences in Recent Centuries by Ferenc Laczó p. 281 Klaus Kempter, Joseph Wulf. Ein Historikerschicksal in Deutschland by Ulrich Wyrwa p. 284 Asher Salah, L’epistolario di Marco Mortara. Un rabbino italiano tra riforma e ortodossia by Carlotta Ferrara Degli Uberti p. 288 IV QUEST N. 6 - FOCUS Introduction Travels to the “Holy Land:” Perceptions, Representations and Narratives by Serena Di Nepi, Arturo Marzano - Travels, Travel Literature and Related Historiography - This Issue: from the Call for Papers to Publication This monographic issue, composed of 10 essays, investigates the relationship between travel and the Holy Land from the 19th century to the beginning of the 21th century. By focusing on travel as its main research topic, this issue intends to analyze the way in which the Holy Land was perceived, represented and narrated during these centuries. As Luca Clerici states in the Introduction to his Scrittori italiani di viaggio [Italian Travel Writers], it is important to “distinguish between odeporic writings, i.e. reports written by authors that describe travel they in fact undertook , and those works in which travel is the author’s invention.” As two comparable examples of this, Clerici presents Marco Polo’s Il Milione on the one hand, and Dante’ La Divina Commedia, on the other. Even though these “two ‘families’ [are] (…) identifiable” and their contents are clearly different, the mutual relationship and the reciprocal influence one ‘family’ has on the other sometimes makes it difficult to distinguish them.1 What impact does an ‘imagined land’ have on the perception and representation of the ‘real land’ that travelers actually visit? This question is particularly important in regard to the Holy Land, certainly the most ‘imagined,’ and probably the most visited land. For this reason, this monographic issue includes articles that deal with perceptions, representations and narrations provided both by travelers to the Holy Land and by subjects (individuals, as well as groups, organizations and institutions) who envisioned it without ever having traveled there. By presenting essays that discuss these two different ‘families,’ this issue intends to identify reciprocal and intertwined influences between narratives of the imagined Holy Land and travelers’ accounts, thus exploring to what extent the construction of the Holy Land has been carried out according to a combination of travelers’ reports and imagined narratives. For the purpose of analyzing perceptions, representations and narratives of the Holy Land, the category of travel is particularly useful, since travel was – and in 1 Luca Clerici, Introduzione, in Scrittori italiani di viaggio, ed. Id., vol. 1 (Milano: Arnoldo Mondadori, 2008), ix. V Serena Di Nepi, Arturo Marzano some ways still is – a preferential mode of circulation, transmission and dissemination of ideas, perceptions and narratives. The essays in this volume examine how individuals and groups of travelers introduced perceptions, representations and narratives of the Holy Land both to their own and to other contexts, thus producing a complex set of exchange and reverberations regarding the Holy Land. Travels, Travel Literature and Related Historiography Since ancient times travel has been a common phenomenon, and travel literature has existed: Herodotus and Homerus are obvious examples of authors who belong to the two ‘families’ we referred to previously. With the modern age, thanks to advancements in transportation, travel became increasingly frequent and the number of travelers grew substantially, as the well-known phenomenon of the Grand Tour in the 18th century easily demonstrates.2 At the beginning of the 19th century, a revolution in travel took place. The Grand Tour as a sort of aristocratic institution was brought to an end, and traveling became a more common endeavor: new transportation-- in particular the steamboat-- the publishing of Baedeker guides, and the birth of the tourist agency Thomas Cook & Son, which organized group trips, were unequivocal signs of that transformation. Finally, during the 20th century, mass tourism arose. Up until the 18th century, travelers were either young aristocrats, who traveled for educational purposes, or people who moved for professional reasons: diplomats and statesmen; scientists and literary men; painters, architects, and people in the field of music (musicians, music librettists, singers); even swashbucklers (honorable and not: spies, gamblers, swindlers, alleged scientists). With the 19th century, travelers’ typology changed as their numbers swelled. To begin with, more people started traveling for professional reasons: the first category that expanded was that of explorers, particularly between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. More scientists traveled, because of the boom in natural sciences; the number of archeologists also increased and more religious people traveled due to the boost of missions all over the world. Finally, with the growing role of the press, new occupations were created: reporters and special correspondents. At the same time, a new form of travel began, promoted by the expansionist and colonial enterprises of states: a growing wave of military personnel and people involved in economic activities (in either agriculture, trade or banking) relocated from the colonial power to its colonized countries, in some cases accompanied by their families. 2 Jeremy Black, The British Abroad, The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (London: St. Martin’s Press, 1992). VI QUEST N. 6 - FOCUS Next, there was also a rise in the number of