Talk:Judah Halevi

Judah ben David ha-levi of Cologne became "Hermannus quondam Idueus" (Hermann the erstwhile Jew) when he approached the baptismal font in 1129 at the age of twenty. He soon became a Premonstratensian canon, rose to the priesthood, and ultimately was chosen abbot of the Premonstratensian cloister at Scheda. Like Peter Alfonsi, Hermann authored a book to explain his apostasy, although his Opusculum de conversione sua concerns the events leading up to his conversion rather that the substantive differences between Judaism and Christianity. Hermann's interesting treatise has been termed the most compelling autobiographical account of religious conversion since Augustine's Confessions, and it provides us with the only source for evaluating his departure from the Jewish community.

The above seems to refer to someone else — this page is for Judah ben Samuel Halevi of Toledo. I don't know anything about Judah ben David Halevi and don't have an EJ handy, so it's up to someone else (or User:66.185.252.134) to make a new page and a disambiguation between the two. I won't have an EJ again until August 2006. --Mgreenbe 19:24, 1 December 2005 (UTC)

Terrible and Inconcievable Mistakes in the Most Obvious of Things

I was enraged to find that someone has mistakingly written that the birthplace of our great and most noble philosopher Rabbi Yehuda Halevi, writer of that most revered of texts, the Book of the Khazari, was Toledo. It is an outrage! the Rihal was born in Tudela, and in 1075 (NOT 1085) by most acounts, this all from the Encyclopedia Judaica. I can scarce believe that the wrath of god has not incinerated this misleading webpage yet, and it is through my fix to the page that I intend to mend the evil done to our great scholar and thus assist in educating the small-minded. Bold text

birth and death dates

I'm reverting the birth and death dates back to the actual year's links. It's hardly relevant to record birthdate and deathdate for poetry; I should think this would be more significant for publication of poetry or its subject matter. If someone objects, please give a reason.--SidP 08:11, 6 January 2007 (UTC)

Journey to the Holy Land

This section seems rather incomplete.

In the preface to Gabriel Levin's translation of On The Sea (Ibis Editions, 1997, Jerusalem), Levin indicates that while Halevi might have initially sought an overland route to Palestine, we do know that he boarded a ship for Palestine and that the ship set sail; otherwise, we have no further record of his journey or his last days. From Levin's preface:

"The Israeli scholar Yospeh Yahalom has recently suggested that, in traveling to Cairo, Halevi sough not pleasure but rather an alternative, overland route to Palestine, and that the poet was somehow foiled in his plans. Whatever the case, the Mediterranean was simply too dangerous to navigate during the winter months [ . . .] Yehuda Halevi boarded ship for Palestine on Thursday, May 8. The ship, however, was still in port on Sunday the eleventh [ . . . ] Scribbling in haste after returning from bidding farewell to Halevi [on May 16], Abu Nasr writes: 'The west wind has risen, the ship has sailed.' In October and then November, the poet's demise is lamented in two separate letters written by friends of Halevi's in Egypt. And yet the exact date, location, and circumstances of his daeath have remained a mystery." (pp. 15-16).

Requested move

Yehuda Halevi → Judah ha-Levi — Per WP naming conventions. English name should be given. Plus proper punctuation would be ha-Levi, since this is not a surname but rather an eke-name ("the Levite"). —Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Discussion

Any additional comments: --Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 17:52, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Support, move sounds reasonable and consistent with WP:NAME, assuming a redirect from Yehuda Halevi to the new name. The only issue I see is using a hyphen in the title, but I suppose redirects of all possible versions would address that. For what it's worth, EB titles it as Judah ha-Levi as you suggest. --MPerel 18:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC) (see below, changed opinion)

Strongly Oppose he is not called "Judah" in English but "Yehuda". Should we also rename Johann Sebastian Bach to John Sebastian Bach because "John" is English for Johann, and while we are about it, how about renaming Eduardo da Silva to Edward da Silva because Edward is the English for Eduardo? Also ha-Levi is not the typical spelling used, one sees Halevy and Halevi Kuratowski's Ghost 23:59, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Comment - He is known as Judah in English. Yehuda is an anglicization of his Hebrew name. Should Judah haNasi, Judah II, Tribe of Judah etc. be moved to Yehuda? Moreover, the common use of Halevy does not make it correct. "Halevy" is a modern surname based on the tribal designation "ha-Levi" ("the Levite"). Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 14:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Oppose, I've changed my mind as Kuratowki's Ghost makes a very good point. --MPerel 07:32, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Support Judah ha-Levi is more common in English than Yehuda Halevi. Kuratowski is right that we should not anglicize automatically, but we should when English does. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 01:39, 8 September 2007 (UTC)