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Life of a Poet
Yehuda Halevi’s 12th-century Hebrew poems still speak to biographer Hillel Halkin
Yehuda Halevi was, some say, the greatest Hebrew-language poet who ever lived. Also a physician and philosopher, he had the good fortune of living in a time and place—Andalusia, in southern Spain, in the 11th and 12th centuries—where the ability to write verse well was highly valued, and where there existed a culture of lively, if not always peaceful, exchange among Muslims, Jews, and Christians. In a new Nextbook Press biography, Hillel Halkin chronicles the life and work of Halevi, including his spiritual yearnings, which would ultimately lead him to make aliyah at a time when such a journey was all but unheard of. Vox Tablet host Sara Ivry spoke by phone to Halkin, who lives north of Tel Aviv, about Halevi’s ability to knock off a few lively verses in exchange for a jug of wine, about the tenuous nature of La Convivencia, “The Coexistence,” and about how he and Halevi found similar resolutions to midlife crises about what it means to be a Jew.
Fyvush Finkel: A Charming Conversation With a Longtime Serious Mensch
As the 91-year-old Yiddish theater star embarks on a Purim cabaret show, we revisit his appearance on Vox Tablet
Pin the Crime on the Jew: Blood Libel and the Case of Mendel Beilis
Edmund Levin plumbs trial transcripts to examine how one of Russia’s biggest court cases fed on the myth of Jewish malice
As If You Needed It, Yet Another Reason To Be in Miami: The Delis
Evolving Jewish culture—and doctors’ orders—dealt a blow to South Florida’s delicatessens. But they’re making a comeback.
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