JUDAH, or JEHUDA (Ar., Abu al-Hoson), BEN SAMUEL, surnamed Ha-LEvr (e.1086-?). A Jewish physician. poet, and philosopher of Spain. He was born in Castile, and first studied medicine, but afterwards devoted himself to phi losophy and poetry. and became the greatest Hebrew poet of the Middle Ages. His songs breathe a constant longing for Jerusalem, the home of his race; and about 1140 be left his college at Toledo to journey to the city of his lays. The date and manner of his death are un known; according to tradition, he was slain by a Moslem while singing his song of Zion. In the field of philosophy his chief work is Al-Khozari, written in Arabic, in which, in the form of a dia logue, the current form of Aristotelianism, Chris tianity, Islam, and finally Judaism are explained to Bulan, King of the Khazars. The work has little theological or philosophical depth, and be trays the essentially poetic mind of its author.
It has been translated from the Hebrew transla tion of Jehuda ibn Tibbon into German by Cas sel (2d ed., Leipzig, 1869), and more successfully by Hirschfeld from the original Arabic Breslau, ls:85), who also published the Arabic text with the Hebrew translation of Jehuda ibn Tibbon (Des Buch Al-Chazari, Leipzig, 1887). Ha-Levi's poems have been translated into German by Sachs, Religiose Poesie dcr Judea in Spanien (Berlin, I845). Geiger, Diran des Costilicrs Je huda (Bre,lati, 1851). and Heller, Die cchten hebrilischen llelodien (Trier, LS93) some of them are found in English in Emma Lazarus's Poetical Works, vol. ii. (Boston, 1889), and Nina Davis, songs of Exile (Philadelphia, 1901). The poems of Jehuda Tin-Levi are remarkable for their pure Hebrew diction. their exalted sen timents, and their fervor. Consult D. Kaufman, Jehuda Ha-Leri (Breslau, 1877).