Pethahiah B. Jacob Ha-Laban (Called Also Pethahiah Of Regensburg)

Traveler; born at Prague; flourished between 1175 and 1190. He journeyed from Ratisbon (Regensburg) to the East, traveling through Poland, southern Russia, Armenia, Persia, Babylon, and Palestine. His notes of the journey, part of which he had mislaid in Bohemia, were collected by his compatriot Judah b. Samuel he-Ḥasid, and were first published, under the abbreviated title "Sibbub," at Prague in 1595; then by Wagenseil, with a Latin version, in "Exercitationes Sex" (pp. 160-203, Strassburg, 1687); by Carmoly, in Hebrew and French under the title "Sibbub ha-'Olam," at Paris in 1831; and finally by A. Benish, in Hebrew and English, as "The Travels of Rabbi Petaḥyah," at London in 1856. The latest edition of Pethahiah's work appeared at Lemberg in 1859.

Bibliography:

  * Zedner, Cat. Hebr. Books Brit. Mus. p. 634;
  * Benjacob, Oẓar ha-Sefarim, 407;
  * Grätz, Gesch. vi. 236, and note 10;
  * Güdemann, Gesch. i. 112;
  * Winter and Wünsche, Die Jüdische Litteratur, iii. 432;
  * Zunz, G. S. i. 165.



W. B. S. O.