The Chida: A Traveler’s View of an 18th-Century Jewish World in Transition

Rabbi Chaim Yosef David Azulai—known universally as the Chida—was one of the most prolific Torah scholars in Jewish history, authoring over fifty works on subjects ranging from halacha and Kabbalah to history and biblical commentary. But what makes him uniquely valuable as a historical source is that he spent twelve years of his life traveling across Europe as a fundraiser for the Sephardic Old Yishuv of Jerusalem and Hebron, and he kept a detailed travelogue of everything he saw. His observations, recorded in a work called Maagal Tov, offer an eyewitness account of Jewish communities in the 1750s and 1770s—and, crucially, of the early stages of secularization that preceded any formal reform or Haskalah movements by decades.

The Shadar System and the Man

The Chida was born into rabbinical aristocracy in Jerusalem in 1724. His family had deep roots in the Sephardic Old Yishuv: his great-grandfather, Rabbi Avraham Azulai (author of Chesed LeAvraham), had emigrated from Fez, Morocco to Hebron in the 1600s, and the family became one of the most prominent rabbinical dynasties in both Jerusalem and Hebron. The Chida studied under an all-star cast of teachers, including his uncle Rabbi Yonatan Navon, Rabbi Chaim ben Attar (the Ohr HaChaim), and the Kabbalist Rabbi Shalom Sharabi.