ABSTRACT
R. Petachia, son of R. Jacob, the brother of the Tosaphist, R. Isaac Halavan, and of R. Nachman of Ratisbon, was born there in the first half of the twelfth century. After settling for some years at Prague, he started thence on his travels through Poland, Kief, Crimea, Tartary, Armenia, Media, Persia, Iraq, Syria, Palestine, and Greece. His travels were only ten or fifteen years after those of Benjamin of Tudela and their accounts supplement each other. Petachia's references to the Karaïtes were the sole source of information about them until the studies of Professor Trigland at the beginning of the eighteenth century.
