Rav Yehudah HaLevy: Poet, Philosopher, and Physician

Dr. Vilsker, whom Dr. Ezra Fleischer called "hailuy" (the genius) drew on his linguistic knowledge and research skills to uncover previously unknown poems by Rav Yehudah HaLevi owned by the Saltykov-Shchedrin St. Petersberg Libraries Frikovich Oriental Collection. Dr Vilsker had previously brought to light a ms. from this Frikovich collection, named Hymn to Wisdom by Hokham Saeed Ben Babshad but his revelation of poems of Rav Yehudah HaLevy rocked the scholarly world in Israel and elsewhere. Kiryat Sefer featured Vilsker's photo with a long article by Dr.Fleischer dedicated to Dr. Vilsker's disovery of unpublished poems of Rav HaLevi and Rav HaLevi's friendship with Rabbi Moshe ibn Ezra. What followed was a tidal wave of popular and scholarly publications about Vilsker's role as a research librarian and scholar.Due to persecution in Russia of Jews and Jewish scholarship, Vilsker's research was surveiled so Dr. Vilsker would write down the cached clandestine first line and send it in a letter, sometimes scrambled in code, to Dr. Fleischer, head of the Cairo Geniza Medieval Poetry Unit. Dr. Fleischer then would consult a catalogue at Hechal Shlomo containing records of medieval Hebrew poems and then send a response to St. Petersberg to Dr. Vilsker. In this way over 22 unknown peoms of Rav Yehudah HaLevy came to light in Israel although publishing the findings at that time in Russia was difficult. Vilsker translated some of the poems into Yiddish, that were in part published in the journal Sovetish Heimland [1982, Febr.]which had censors not to publish in Hebrew. On April 7 Maariv announcement the importance of the findings. Yehudah Ratshabi, David Yosifon, Dov Yarden, and Nehemiah Aloni etc recognized the genius of Vilsker's work. David Yosifon in ha-Tsofe writes, "It is my duty and delight to tell you that the scientist Dr. Leib Vilsker from Leningrad has made a new discovery written about in Soveitshc Heimland that will have immense scholarly impact." In 1983 Nehemiah Aloni blessed Vilsker with his scholarly work of love in the journal Sinai (#93) writes, "We are awaiting with great impatience (bhe kil'on eynaim) a continuation of Vilsker's work in all its brilliance and depth. We learned more from Vilsker's concise article than from long tomes." After enumerating 7 discoered poems by Vilsker, Aloni adds, "and the most important discovery is the author himself, who now is one of the foremost researchers in the corpos of Rav Yehudah HaLevi today." Aloni described a poem rediscovered by Vilsker about a pogrom in Toledo in the 12th Century. The pogrom was conducted as Vilsker revealed by both Muslims and Chrisitans from the north against the Jews, each stanza ending with the word "yom." The 5th discovery according to Aloni is a song of love titled "Yonim Yaraneinu." Vilsker's friend the composer Hirsch Paikin created music for the poem. Paiklin went on to compose an opera about Rav HaLevi. Clara Yakovlevna made a cassette recording of the Paikin Rav Yehudah HaLevi song/poems. Yosef Yahalom writes, "In the last article Vilsker presents for hte first time the message of Rav HaLevy to his great patron in Granada, the poet Moshe ibn Ezra, but in Yiddish. The text of the Hebrew original of this ms. was prohibited for printing, and the passing of Vilsker (ztsl) was a closing of the windown into the world of Hebrew manuscripts under lock and key protected like the Pentagon, unknown to us." Dr. Vilsker was a scholar trapped in Communist Russia where it was not only illegal to teach torah, perform bris millah, conduct shehitah, but even to write 2 Hebrew letters, much less widely publish in the field of Jewish studies. Once the Iron Curtain fell Yosef Yahalom hurried to St. Petersberg and became acquainted with the treasures Vilsker tried to share with the Jewish world (Peamim, #46-47, 1991). The reception impact of Vilsker's discoveries in over 100 publications can be found in 7 attachments in Hebrew, Yiddish, and Russian provided by David B Levy in the 51st Annual Conference of AJL Proceedings, June 19-22, 2016. See full text version for more on stellar Hebraica Research librarians including Steinschneider, Alexander Marx, Umberto Cassuto, Gershom Scholem, Yakov Dienstag, Rabbi Efraim Oshry, Menachem Schmelzer, Malachi Beit Arie, etc.