Dunash ben Labrat

Dunash ha-Levi ben Labrat (c. 920–c. 990) was a poet and grammarian who transformed Hebrew letters. Born in Fez and educated in Baghdad under Saadia Gaon, he was drawn to Córdoba by Hasdai ibn Shaprut. There he made his lasting innovation: adapting the quantitative meter of Arabic poetry to Hebrew, he founded the Andalusian school of Hebrew verse whose forms would carry through Ibn Gabirol, Yehuda HaLevi and beyond — and his Sabbath hymn Dror Yikra is still sung today. As a grammarian he advanced the analysis of Hebrew by triliteral roots, and his famous critique of Menachem ben Saruk's Machberet reshaped the field.