Judah Halevi was a Sephardic Jewish poet, physician and philosopher. He was born in Al-Andalus, either in Toledo or Tudela, in 1075. He is thought to have died in 1141, in either Jerusalem, at that point the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, or in Alexandria, Egypt.

The golden age of Jewish culture in Spain, which coincided with the Middle Ages in Europe, was a period of Muslim rule during which, Jews were generally accepted in society and Jewish religious, cultural, and economic life flourished.