Judah Halevi

Judah haLevi, who lived circa 1075 to 1141, was a Sephardic Jewish poet, physician and philosopher born in either Tudela or Toledo in Al-Andalus, considered one of the greatest Hebrew-language poets and celebrated for both secular and religious poems still found in Jewish liturgy today. Fluent in Arabic and Hebrew and trained in classical sciences including medicine and philosophy, his poetic works spanned panegyrics, friendship poems, wine songs, riddles, didactic verse and wedding poems, and he is most remembered for his Zionides, poems expressing deep longing for the Land of Israel, including Zion, Do You Not Inquire and My Heart Is in the East, the latter articulating the tension between Spain's comforts and his spiritual connection to Zion. Beyond poetry he authored the Kuzari, a philosophical treatise defending Judaism that emphasizes the spiritual centrality of the Jewish people and their connection to the Land of Israel; late in life he journeyed eastward, reaching Egypt in 1140 and remaining in Alexandria for a year before sailing toward the Holy Land in 1141, and likely died shortly after, possibly at sea or near Jerusalem.