RELIGIOUS POEMS BY HA-LEVI:
POEMS OF SORROW BY HA-LEVI:
LOVE POEMS BY HA-LEVI:
HUMOROUS POEMS BY HA-LEVI:
POEMS ON THE PURSUIT OF WISDOM BY HA-LEVI:
POEMS ABOUT HA-LEVI'S JOURNEY TO ISRAEL:
A published collection of 24 of ha-Levi's poems, along with poems by other Hebrew authors, is The Penguin Book of Hebrew Verse, edited by T. Carmi.
Also great is the book containing 92 of his works: Ninety-Two Poems and Hymns of Yehuda Halevi, by Franz Rosenzweig, edited by Richard A. Cohen, translated by Thomas Kovach and Gilya Gerda Schmidt.
Some HaLevi poems are also included in the following compilation: Music of a Distant Drum: Classical Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Hebrew Poems, translated by Bernard Lewis.
In the free eBook The Selected Poems of Yehuda Halevi from Nextbook Press, Hillel Halkin translated many of HaLevi's poems into English, alongside the Hebrew originals, and provided annotations on them.
"My Heart is in the East" Mizrach (Lasercut) by Marci Wiesel is a beautiful artistic sign that should be framed so that it points in the direction of Jerusalem. This design features a phrase of Yehuda HaLevi's most famous poem in Hebrew. Size: 28 x 35.6 cm / 11 x 14".
Etti Ankri, an Israeli singer, released the album "Rabbi Yehuda Halevy Sung" with 11 of HaLevi's poems set to music.
CLASSIC PROSE BY HA-LEVI:
Ha-Levi's most famous work is The Kuzari, which is comprised of 5 essays and was written between 1120 and 1140. The Kuzari tells how the king of the Khazars decided to adopt Judaism after consulting with apologists for the Christian, Islamic, and Judaic religions. The Jewish rabbi presented many persuasive arguments, and so the Khazar king decided to be circumcised and officially convert. According to Rabbi Eliyahu (the "Gaon") of Vilna, The Kuzari is "holy and pure, and the fundamentals of Israel's faith and the Torah are contained within." The Kuzari is popular worldwide and has been translated into Hebrew, Ladino, English, French, German, and several other languages.
MISCELLANEOUS:
In his book "A Jewish Archive from Old Cairo: The History of Cambridge University's Genizah Collection" (RoutledgeCurzon, 2000), Stefan Reif notes that the Cairo Genizah Collection contains a letter (catalogued as Taylor-Schechter AS 146.6) describing the departure by sea (rather than by land) of HaLevi from Alexandria, Egypt to Israel on May 14th of the year 1141. For so many centuries it has been an intriguing mystery as to whether HaLevi actually reached the land of Israel and the city of Jerusalem. Reif thinks we are closer to an answer than ever before. Now we know that HaLevi spent some time in Egypt in early 1141 and met with many residents of Egypt during that time, composing special poems for them, and that soon afterwards HaLevi did in fact manage to make a last-minute trip to Israel. As Reif writes: "...he set sail eastwards from Alexandria... presumably arriving in Palestine within ten days. That could have given him a month to visit the holy sites before his death in July, a pilgrimage by him that is hinted at, if not clearly spelt out, in another Genizah text. Apparently, then, his Zionist ambitions, so clearly expressed in his writings, were finally realized." (page 169).
Israel's Sweetest Singer: Yehudah Halevi (1080-1140) by Abraham Regelson - an analysis of the writings and beliefs of Yehuda HaLevi, with translations of many of his poems: "Nuptial Song", "Curtains of Solomon", "On His Departure for Zion", "Night on the Sea", "On Nature's Glory in Egypt", "On the Flowers of Spring", and "Love of Zion"
Raymond P. Scheindlin's book "The Song of the Distant Dove: Judah Halevi's Pilgrimage" (Oxford University Press, 2007) explores HaLevi's life as a doctor, theologian, communal leader, and writer, including his wish that his contemporary Spanish Jews would abandon Arabic influences on their lives, which however he himself never fully rejected. This book contains English translations of many documents and poems by HaLevi, including some that haven't previously been available in English.
Hillel Halkin wrote a biography titled "Yehuda Halevi" (Schocken, 2010).
