In his description of Constantinople, Benjamin of Tudela starts with a brief description of the government before turning to discuss the architecture. He focuses on especially on the great wealth displayed in the city. Wealth that he claims is drawn from a great market housing traders from across the known world and tribute from the surrounding areas that serve to greatly enrich the city. However, after discussing the great wealth and influence of the Greeks, Benjamin turns to the segregated area outside of the city, called Pera, where the Jews are forced to live. He describes the Jews there as wise, upstanding, and occasionally rich individuals who are nevertheless subjected to cruel mistreatment by the Greek majority. The readers once again learn nothing of Benjamin’s personal experience, but given that he is a Jewish traveler, he likely stayed in Pera and perhaps personally experienced or saw the oppression Jews in Constantinople endured.
Benjamin established the people of Constantinople as wealthy elites. They, especially the King Emanuel, have enough gold to plate every possible surface in it and to drape themselves in rich cloth of purple and gold silk. Equally he admires the grandeur of their festivities. He claims with a sense of awe that both the wealth and the entertainment found in Constantinople are unmatched anywhere on earth (21). However, he also states that the people are feeble and incapable of fighting. This contrast of splendor and might shows a chink in the gilded façade of the Greeks. Although he describes the magnificent churches and palaces in awe, he has very little to say about the Greeks as people. He briefly claims that they are rich and learned, but weak. While Benjamin is clearly an appreciator of the great splendor in the places he visits, he pays little attention to cultures outside of his own. His interest in others is in their monuments not their lives. Hence why in regions with little splendor to describe he moves from place to place at a rapid pace.
Benjamin’s description of the Jewish community, however, is far more personal. He lists the specific names of important individuals, both in major and minor cities. They are noted as “good, kindly, and charitable” as well as wealthy through trading and silk weaving (24). This attention to their personalities frames the Jews as real people more than the Greeks who are simply another sight to be observed. Their goodly personalities are even more relevant when contrasted with the oppression they face. Benjamin very rarely describes any action, but he takes the time to tell how the tanners throw dirty water on the Jews doorsteps and how they are beaten in the streets. Great empathy is devoted to the struggles of his community. His Jewish readership would be equally empathetic as they, especially those suffering under the inquisition in his native Spain, have similarly endured great hardship and discrimination. In the interpretation that this book was intended to let Jewish travelers know where was safe to go this passage informs them that although there is a large Jewish community of good people in Constantinople it is not a place with good conditions to live. Though the city itself is full of beauty to the traveler and opportunity for the merchant, there is danger to be wary of for any Jew passing through.