Judah Halevi c. 1075 – 1141

Judah Halevi was a Spanish Jewish philosopher, poet, and physician who lived in the Christian and Muslim courts of medieval Iberia. His philosophical dialogue The Kuzari, conducted between a rabbi and the king of the Khazars, defends Judaism against the rival claims of Christianity, Islam, philosophy, and the surviving Karaite movement, arguing that revealed religion is rooted in historical experience rather than abstract speculation. Late in life he set out for the Holy Land, and is traditionally believed to have died as he approached Jerusalem. His Hebrew poetry, secular and religious, is among the finest of the medieval Jewish tradition.