Judah ben Samuel Halevi (c. 1075–1141) was the premier Hebrew poet of medieval Spain. Over the course of some fifty years, from the end of the 11th century to the middle of the 12th, he wrote nearly 800 poems, both secular and religious. His technical virtuosity makes his poems extraordinarily difficult to translate. They are endlessly inventive in their word and sound-play, exquisitely musical, and constantly resourceful in their marshalling of biblical allusions in line after line. Halevi’s attachment to the Jewish people is a significant theme in his religious poetry; Spanish Jews were on occasion subject to murderous pogroms, and though they drew from the riches of Arabic culture, the Muslims among whom they lived generally despised them. He died either during or shortly after leaving Spain for the Land of Israel, then in the hands of Crusaders.
This bilingual Hebrew-English collection is divided into four categories: The Journey to Zion, Love and Bridal Songs, Poems of Friendship, and Devotional Poems, with thirteen of the poems retranslated into rhyming versions as well.