Judah ha-Levi

Judah Halevi
Born	c. 1075 Toledo or Tudela, Spain
Died	1141 Jerusalem, Kingdom of Jerusalem
Notable work	The Kuzari
Era	Medieval philosophy
School	Jewish philosophy

Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי‎ and Judah ben Shmuel Halevi יהודה בן שמואל הלוי‎; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي‎‎; c. 1075 – 1141) was a Spanish Jewish physician, poet and philosopher. He was born in Spain, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075 or 1086, and died shortly after arriving in the Holy Land in 1141, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. Halevi is considered one of the greatest Hebrew poets, celebrated both for his religious and secular poems, many of which appear in present-day liturgy. His greatest philosophical work was The Kuzari.

Convention suggests that Judah ben Shmuel Halevi was born in Toledo, Spain in 1075. He often referred to himself as coming from Christian territory. Alfonso the Battler conquered Tudela in 1119; Toledo was conquered by Alfonso VI from the Muslims in Halevi's childhood (1086). As a youth, he seems to have gone to Granada, the main center of Jewish literary and intellectual life at the time, where he found a mentor in Moses Ibn Ezra. Although it is often said that he studied in the academy at Lucena, there is no evidence to this effect. He did compose a short elegy on the death of Isaac Alfasi, the head of the academy. His aptitude as a poet was recognized early. He was educated in traditional Jewish scholarship, in Arabic literature, and in the Greek sciences and philosophy that were available in Arabic. As an adult he was a physician, apparently of renown, and an active participant in Jewish communal affairs. For at least part of his life he lived in Toledo and may have been connected with the court there as a physician. In Toledo he complains of being too busy with medicine to devote himself to scholarship. At other times he lived in various Muslim cities in the south.

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