IBN BARZEL, JOSEPH

IBN BARZEL, JOSEPH (12^th century), Hebrew physician and poet. Ibn Barzel was a member of a well-known Spanish-Jewish family, but he was not considered in his time a very good writer. His contemporary, Moses *Ibn Ezra, does not mention him among the best poets of the epoch. He is mentioned in a letter of *Judah Halevi to his friend *Halfon ben Nethanel (published by Goitein and Gil Fleischer) as someone who was very close to him. He is also mentioned in the 13^th century, together with Solomon ibn Almu'allim and Joseph ibn *Ẓaddik, by Judah *al-Ḥarizi (Taḥkemoni 3) who describes his poetry as outstanding: "iron penned smooth, spiced song iron-strong." The extant fragments of Ibn Barzel's poems, found among the Cambridge genizah fragments and in a manuscript of the E. *Adler Collection, reveal talent, and – even those composed in accordance with conventional poetic forms – also originality. Schirmann published the preserved part of two panegyrics with a strophic structure as well as a short reshut in which God proclaims the liberation of Israel.

bibliography:

Schirmann, in: ymḤsi, 2 (1936), 175–8; Schirmann, Sefarad, 1 (1959²), 566–8; Goitein, in: Tarbiz, 25 (1956), 402, 409–10; J.M. Millás Vallicrosa, Escrituras mozárabes de hebreos toledanos (1930), 35; Al-Ḥarizi, Tahkemoni, ed. by A. Kaminka (1899), 39, line 13 (cf. 475), and 42, line 12; Schirmann-Fleischer, The History of Hebrew Poetry in Muslim Spain (1995), 518–21 (Heb.); M. Gil and E. Fleischer, Yehuda ha-Levi and His Circle (2001), 324–26 (Heb.).

[Angel Sáenz-Badillos (2^nd ed.)]