Poetry · R' Yehuda HaLevi · 12th c. · Toledo · Autograph · Letter · Cairo Geniza

אגרת בכתב יד קדשו של רבי יהודה הלוי — טוליטולה תתצ״ח

Letter from R' Yehuda HaLevi — autograph, Toledo 1138 (T-S 8J18.5)

Toledo, August 1138 · Cambridge University Library — Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, T-S 8J18.5

An autograph letter in the hand of R' Yehuda HaLevi (c. 1075–1141) — the greatest of the medieval Sephardic Hebrew poets and author of the Kuzari — written from Toledo in August 1138 to his close friend Ḥalfon b. Netanel in Fustat. The letter concerns the ransom of a captive Jewish woman in al-Andalus, for whom 32⅔ dinars were needed; HaLevi notes that he himself contributed ⅔ dinar toward the sum and pleads for Ḥalfon's help raising the rest. One of the very few surviving documents in HaLevi's own hand, recovered from the Cairo Genizah by Solomon Schechter and Charles Taylor in 1898 and identified as autograph by Goitein in his classic 1956 study Otografim shel Yehuda HaLevi (Tarbiz 25). One leaf, 17.1 × 17.8 cm, with holes and rubbing. A downloadable PDF facsimile is also available.