Yehuda HaLevi רבי יהודה הלוי
poet and philosopher, author of the Kuzari, singer of Zion
Yehuda HaLevi was born in Tudela around 4835, worked as a physician, lived in Toledo and Córdoba, and was a friend of Avraham ibn Ezra. He wrote verse of every kind, but two bodies of work became immortal: his liturgical poems, which entered the prayer books of every community, and the «Songs of Zion», still read on Tisha B'Av. «My heart is in the East, and I am at the edge of the West» is the best-known line in the poetry of exile.
His book, the Kuzari, is built as a conversation between the king of the Khazars and a philosopher, a Christian, a Muslim and at last a Jew. It is not dry apologetics: HaLevi argues that faith rests not on abstract proof but on history witnessed by a whole people. He writes of the bond between Israel, its land and its language, and of why exile is not a refutation of chosenness but its burden.
He did not stop at the book.