24 Facts About Judah Halevi

Judah Halevi was born in Al-Andalus, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075.

Judah Halevi is thought to have died in 1141, in either Jerusalem, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, or in Alexandria, Fatimid Egypt.

Judah Halevi ben Samuel ha-Levi was born either in Toledo or Tudela, both then under Almoravid rule, between 1075 and 1080.

Judah Halevi was educated in traditional Jewish scholarship, in Arabic literature, and in the Greek sciences and philosophy that were available in Arabic.

Judah Halevi was in contact with both Jewish and non-Jewish nobles and dignitaries within Spain and around the world.

Judah Halevi's poetry is distinguished by special attention to acoustic effect and wit.

Judah Halevi wanted to make his own aliyah: a trip believed to allow spiritual ascension by going "up" to the land.

Judah Halevi's journey is viewed as either a personal religious pilgrimage or as an urging to the diaspora to abandon their cultural synthesis of Graeco-Arabic-Iberian culture, the former being the Diasporist, the latter a Zionist interpretation.

Judah Halevi then went to Cairo, where he visited several dignitaries and friends.

Legend has it that Judah Halevi was trampled by an Arab horseman as he arrived in Jerusalem, with the first account found within a Hebrew miscellany published around 450 years after Judah Halevi's presumed death.

Judah Halevi's work covers common subjects in Spanish Hebrew poetry using forms and artistic patterns of secular and religious poetry.

Judah Halevi's diwan was edited and published by Haim Brody in four volumes from 1895 to 1904.

In Cordoba, Judah Halevi addressed a touching farewell poem to Joseph ibn Zaddik, the philosopher and poet.

Judah Halevi often utilized the qasida form and meditated on death and fate.

Judah Halevi is noted as the most prolific composer of Hebrew riddles, with a corpus of at least sixty-seven riddles, some of which survive in his own hand, and even in draft form, though only a few have been translated into English.

Judah Halevi's riddles are mostly short, monorhyme compositions on concrete subjects such as everyday objects, animals and plants, or a name or word.

Judah Halevi's attachment to the Jewish people is a significant theme in his religious poetry; he identifies his sufferings and hopes with that of the broader group.

Judah Halevi's Zionides give voice both to the Jewish people as a whole and to each individual Jew, and he never lost faith in the eventual deliverance and redemption of Israel and his people:.

Judah Halevi believed he would find true liberation through subservience to God's will in Israel.

Judah Halevi combined descriptions from Scripture with personal and historical Jewish experiences to form another kind of religiously themed poetry.

Judah Halevi used devices like sound patterns and vivid imagery to evoke the suffering of exile and fear of the destruction of his people as a result of a delayed redemption.

Judah Halevi was a prolific author of piyyutim, selichot and kinnot.

However, his pupil Solomon Parhon, who wrote at Salerno in 1160, relates that Judah Halevi repented having used the new metrical methods, and had declared he would not again employ them.

Judah Halevi admired it but criticized it in a way comparable to al-Ghazali.