JL;DR SUMMARY The text recounts the author's childhood fascination with a cartoon about Benjamin of Tudela, a 12th-century Jewish traveler, and explores their subsequent discovery of the city of Harbin in China, built by Jewish immigrants in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.