Authors of Piyyut
Authors of piyyut are known as paytanim. Piyyut is Jewish liturgical poetry, in Hebrew or occasionally Aramaic.
The earliest authors of piyyut did not sign their names in acrostics, nor do manuscripts preserve their names. The earliest paytan whose name is known is Yosé ben Yosé, usually dated to fifth-century Palestine; he did not sign his name in his work, but copyists of manuscripts preserved it along with his work. Starting in the sixth century, paytanim began to sign their work.
Pre-classical Palestine
- Yosé bar Yosé—5th-century CE Palestine
Classical Palestine
- Eleazar ben Qallir —6th- to 7th-century Palestine
- Joshua the Kohen—7th-century Palestine
- Pinḥas the Kohen, son of Jacob—8th-century Tiberias, Palestine
- Simeon bar Megas the Kohen—6th-century Palestine
- Yannai—6th-century Palestine
- Yoḥanan the Kohen, son of Joshua—7th-century Palestine
Post-classical Palestine and the Middle East
- Benjamin ben Judah—late 9th- or 10th-century Middle East, perhaps Iraq
- Saadia Gaon—early to mid-10th-century Iraq
- Shelomo Suleiman al-Sanjāry—9th-century Middle East
- Moses ben Abraham Bali, Egyptian Karaite physician
Apulia (Southern Italy)
- Amittai ben Shefatya—mid- to late 9th-century Oria
Lombardy
[Iberian Peninsula] - [Golden [age of Jewish culture in Spain|the Spanish period]]
- Dunash ben Labrat—mid- to late 10th-century Iberia
- Judah Halevi (also Yehuda Halevi or ha-Levi; Hebrew: יהודה הלוי; Arabic: يهوذا اللاوي; c. 1075 – 1141)
- * Solomon ibn Gabirol, also known as Solomon ben Judah and traditionally known by his Latinized name Avicebron, was an Andalusian poet and Jewish philosopher with a Neoplatonic bent. He was born in Málaga about 1021 and is believed to have died around 1058 in Valencia.
- Solomon ben Judah Ghayyat