Person · 4835–4901 AM · 1075 CE — 1141 CE

Yehuda HaLevi רבי יהודה הלוי

poet and philosopher, author of the Kuzari, singer of Zion

Yehuda HaLevi was born in Tudela around 4835, worked as a physician, lived in Toledo and Córdoba, and was a friend of Avraham ibn Ezra. He wrote verse of every kind, but two bodies of work became immortal: his liturgical poems, which entered the prayer books of every community, and the "Songs of Zion", still read on Tisha B'Av. "My heart is in the East, and I am at the edge of the West" is the best-known line in the poetry of exile.

His book, the Kuzari, is built as a conversation between the king of the Khazars and a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim and at last a Jew. It is not dry apologetics: HaLevi argues that faith rests not on abstract proof but on history witnessed by a whole people. He writes of the bond between Israel, its land and its language, and of why exile is not a refutation of chosenness but its burden.

He did not stop at the book.

On the timeline

4900 · 1140 CEYehuda HaLevi and the Kuzari 4705 · 945 CEThe Golden Age of Spanish Jewry: Hasdai ibn Shaprut and Shmuel HaNagid 4904 · 1144 CEThe Second Crusade and the Birth of the Blood Libel: Norwich and Blois 4898 · 1138 CEThe Birth of Maimonides and the Years of Wandering 5656 · 1896 CEThe Cairo Genizah: a thousand years of paper from one storeroom

Places

Toledo Cordoba Jerusalem

Avraham ibn Ezra Shmuel HaNagid Rambam Piyut Rabbi Solomon ibn Gabirol

Sources

Rishonim

Sefer HaKuzari — the dialogue on the choice of faith: belief drawn from a people’s memory
the Divan of Rabbi Yehudah HaLevi — the collected poems
the Zionides — Tzion HaLo Tishali — the lament for Zion that entered the kinot

Documents of the period

the Cairo Genizah — the documents concerning his journey to the Land of Israel

Basis: documents and evidence.