The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi's Pilgrimage

by Raymond P. Scheindlin

Overview

Judah Halevi (d. 1141), the greatest of premodern Hebrew poets, abandoned his home in Spain and traveled to the Land of Israel. Raymond Scheindlin has written the first book-length treatment of Halevi's pilgrimage in any language. He provides a detailed narrative of Halevi's journey, interwoven with poems and samples of original documents -- most translated from Arabic into English for the first time. The narrative is crowned by the complete corpus of Halevi's pilgrimage poems in new verse translations, accompanied by discussions of their religious emotional, and literary character. An introduction examines Halevi's cultural background as part of the Judeo-Arabic elite and explores his intellectual and religious development as reflected in his poetry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780198043058
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	12/14/2007
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Raymond Scheindlin is Professor of Medieval Hebrew Literature and director of the Shalom Spiegel Institute of Medieval Hebrew Poetry, Jewish Theological Seminary of America. He is the author of Wine, Women, and Death: Medieval Hebrew Poems on the Good Life, The Gazelle: Medieval Hebrew Poetry on God, Israel, and the Soul, A Short History of the Jewish People, and a verse translation of the Book of Job. He was the recipient of the Cultural Achievement Award of the National Foundation for Jewish Culture in 2004.

Table of Contents

Introduction     3
A Portrait of the Pilgrim
Halevi's Religious Development     11
The National Problem     53
The Visionary     70
The Pilgrimage
Alexandria     97
Cairo     119
Alexandria Again     141
The Pilgrim Speaks
An Epistle     155
In Imagination     163
Argumentation     182
The Voyage     215
Epilogue     249
Notes     253
Poem Sources     285
Bibliography     291
Index of Poems     299
Index of Names and Subjects     303

Editorial Reviews

"This luminous and elegant study brings to life one of the most remarkable personalities of medieval Judaism, the Spanish Hebrew poet and philosopher Judah Halevi at the moment of his fabled pilgrimage to the land of Israel, and in doing so, captures an entire Jewish culture in all its complex yearnings. By combining his unequaled gifts as a scholar, literary translator, and interpreter of poetry, Scheindlin has produced a book quite unlike any other in contemporary Jewish writing." —David M. Stern, Ruth Meltzer Professor of Classical Hebrew in the Jewish Studies Program at the University of Pennsylvania

"Literary scholars will find much that is new here, for Scheindlin is the most sensitive reader of these texts among Hebrew poetry scholars today. He also places the Hebrew poet squarely in his Islamic/Arabic context. With his integrated, interdisciplinary approach to the poet's pilgrimage, blending literature, philosophy, religion, and history, the author makes a very important contribution." —Mark Cohen, Princeton University, author of Under Crescent and Cross: The Jews in the Middle Ages

"Raymond Scheindlin is a particularly spiritually sensitive literary scholar and translator, and his book captures as none has before the complexity, beauty, and wisdom of Halevi's poetry." —Tikkun

"This superb study of the most important poet-philosopher of medieval Jewish history should reawaken interest in his life and work. In his lucid, eloquent examination, Scheindlin provides the necessary materials for a modern reading of Halevi's treasured poems and theological treatises." —Choice

"Scheindlin creates a work that, like his subject's life and writings, has a splendid resonance. ...we have here not only a new way of interpreting the great Halevi, but it feels as if, through these elegant translations, we've also been presented with a newly discovered cache of Halevi poems. Few scholarly works provide readers with such accessible literary riches." —Jewish Exponent

"Writing with characteristic elegance, Scheindlin brings to bear all of his scholarly gifts: graceful literary translation; incisive analysis; and an imposing command of classical Jewish sources, medieval Jewish history, and Jewish and Islamic religious thought. ...The Song of the Distant Dove is a pleasure to read...Schendlin has a rare gift for making medieval Hebrew literature accessible to a broad audience without sacrificing scholarly rigor or sophistication. ...Scheindlin's work is the authoritative study of Halevi's pilgrimage and a magnificent contribution to the growing body of scholarship on the Jews in the medieval Islamic world and their literary creativity." —Journal of the American Oriental Society

"Scheindlin's insights into the poetry as a vivid expression of the poet's life and thought make this study strikingly rich. It is at once a literary study, a work of religious thought, and an important contribution to cultural and intellectual history. This remarkable study will leave a deep imprint on both historical scholarship and the literary and religious imagination."—Speculum

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