friendly demeanor gained him access to elite circles. He won an Ibn Ezra
poem improvisation competition, and the admiration and support of the Ibn
Ezra family, who invited Halevi to Granada. There he remained until 1090,
when the Muslim fundamentalist Ibn Tashfin captured the city.
At this point, Halevi began to travel, and spent time in Lucenna and
Seville. Eventually he settled in Córdoba, which was still home to Jewish
scholars and writers. He earned a living as a physician, and became rich. His
literary output marked the pinnacle of Hebrew poetry in Spain. More of his
poems were incorporated into the Jewish liturgy than those of any other poet.
Most striking among his poems were those in which he expressed his
yearning for Zion, such as “Libi ba-Mizrach” (My heart is in the east). Unlike
his contemporaries, Halevi believed that the Muslim–Christian conflict in
Spain was a microcosm of global conflict. He saw Spanish Jews as caught
between hammer and anvil, tottering on a precipice, and felt that Spain was
at best only a temporary refuge. He argued that Jews should return to Zion.
Centuries later, proponents of Zionism would (anachronistically) claim him
as a precursor. In fact, his yearning for Zion reflected a traditional messianic
belief, with one modification: that Jews should wait for the Messiah in Israel
in order to hasten the arrival of the Messianic Age.
Parallel to his disillusionment with the prospects for Jewish life in Spain
was his critique of the influence of philosophy in Jewish intellectual life. In
the greatest of his works, Kuzari: A Defense of a Despised Religion, Halevi pro-
duced what has been described as a philosophical critique of philosophy. In
this work, he imagined the decision-making process that led the king of the
Khazars to convert to Judaism. In a series of dialogues, the king listens and
dismisses the arguments of a Muslim, a Christian, and a philosopher. He then
listens and accepts the arguments of a rabbi, deciding that Judaism is the
bearer of divine truth.
In the end, though, while Maimonides and Yehuda Halevi were undoubt-
edly not the only Spanish Jews to leave Spain, many others remained in Spain
by migrating northward to Christian Spain. Notable among these Jews were
Abraham ibn Daud and the Ibn Ezra family, who were able to reestablish
themselves in the comparatively less contentious climate of the Christian
North. There they would encounter a whole new set of challenges and oppor-
tunities in the world of European Christendom.
The Jews of Islam 73