Judah Halevi: His Oeuvre and its Reception

Session Submission Type: Panel Session

Abstract

Several recent studies, most notably Adam Shear’s THE KUZARI AND THE SHAPING OF JEWISH IDENTITY, 1167-1900, have fleshed out the reception history of Halevi’s KUZARI as well as his liturgical poetry. These studies have suggested that both within the Sefardic or Spanish milieu and without, Halevi’s oeuvre impacted and interacted with much more than purely philosophical circles and methods or related devotional contexts. This session will treat three disparate examples of this range of influence, in areas that have received only limited attention to this point. Daniel Lasker’s paper deals with Halevi’s criticism of systems of thought that operated well beyond Aristotelian philosophy and even Karaism. These include astrologers, dualists and writers of amulets, among other such groups, whose mistaken methods are criticized quite pointedly by Halevi. Ephraim Kanarfogel treats the impact of Halevi in medieval Ashkenaz on the basis of a series of manuscript passages. Aside from documenting the presence of Ibn Tibbon’s translation of the KUZARI in Ashkenaz around the year 1200, a finding that has been quite elusive, Kanarfogel shows that the engagement of Halevi’s TORAT HA-KAVOD by the German Pietists and related mystical circles was substantive and consistent, especially as these interactions emerge from PIYYUT commentaries produced in this same period and cultural milieu. George Kohler discusses the reception of the KUZARI within the WISSENSCHAFT DES JUDENTUMS movement. Focusing especially on the work of Julius Guttman, Kohler shows that WISSENSCHAFT scholars did not neglect the ‘anti-philosophical’ KUZARI, but instead appreciated its promoting of Jewish spirituality in a non-legal way. Furthermore, they held up the KUZARI as a model for integrating religiosity and moral reason, which had become a pressing issue in their day.

Sub Unit

• Medieval and Early Modern Jewish History, Literature, and Culture

Chair

• Margot Behrend Valles, Michigan State University

Individual Presentations

• Unapproved Cognitive Methodologies and the Mistakes They Generate in Halevi's KUZARI - Daniel J. Lasker, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

• The Impact of Halevi in Medieval Ashkenaz - Ephraim Kanarfogel, Yeshiva University

• Julius Guttmann and the Reception of the KUZARI in Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Germany - George Yaakov Kohler, Bar-Ilan University