JUDITH MONTEFIORE’SPrivate Journal of a Visit to Egypt and Palestine by Way of Italy and the Mediterranean has been called “the first account in English by a Jewish woman traveller.”1 Recorded in 1827–28 and privately printed in 1836 but never published, the Journal is not widely available and has received only passing acknowledgment, mostly in assessments of the life and career of Moses Montefiore, Judith Montefiore’s husband and perhaps the most celebrated Jewish philanthropist of the nineteenth century.2 What begins as a casual record of travels, first through France and Italy — in the familiar style of the picturesque traveller — becomes the record of a spiritually transforming event in Jerusalem. After this journey the Montefiores became more ritually observant, more focused on tzedakah (acts of righteousness), and more widely connected to the Jewish world.