Travel season: new editions of Jewish travel books

With the travel season under way, new Jewish travel books and resources are becoming available, and we will be highlighting some of them.

In this post, we note new editions of two Jewish travel guide books that have been around for some years.

Jewish London – 3rd revised edition: A Comprehensive Guidebook for Visitors and Londoners

By Rachel Kolsky and Roslyn Rawson

(IMM Lifestyle press, April 2018)

The first edition of this lavishly illustrated, information-packed book came out in 2012, followed by a second edition in 2915. The book includes 10 guided walks through the East End, Central, and West End of London, as well as day trip outside of the city, practical and historical information, major sights as well as off-the-beaten-track sights with Jewish interest. The second edition of the book is available as an e-book.

Kolsky is a prize-winning London Blue Badge Guide who runs Go London Tours. She specializes in Jewish heritage, discovering women’s history, and “uncovering the human stories behind London’s buildings. Roslyn Rawson is a writer and solicitor who writes on travel, food and Jewish culture.

A Travel Guide to Jewish Europe – Fourth Edition

By Ben G. Frank

Pelican Press, 2018

This is the fourth revised edition of a ground-breaking guidebook that first came out in 1992, with subsequent editions  in 1996 and 2001. (The book originally mainly focussed on western Europe; the third edition in 2001 added new chapters on the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and Poland.) It is available as an e-book.

The guide includes 20 countries across western, central, and east-central Europe. It provides ample historical background on the Jewish communities of the various countries, as well as addresses for active synagogues, Jewish organizations, and kosher restaurants. In much of the book, however, the author tends to focus almost exclusively on major cities: only Vienna in Austria,  Prague and the WW2 Terezin ghetto camp in the Czech Republic, Istanbul in Turkey, Budapest in Hungary, for example, despite the wealth of Jewish heritage sites and itineraries found throughout these countries.

Ben G. Frank is a veteran travel writer for the Jerusalem Post and other publications and the author of several books. He has travel to and written from around 90 countries.