Isaac Israeli ben Joseph or Yitzhak ben Yosef (often known as Isaac Israeli the Younger) was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer/astrologer who flourished at Toledo in the first half of the fourteenth century. He was a pupil of Asher ben Yehiel, at whose request (in 1310) he wrote the astronomical work Yesod Olam, the best contribution on that subject to Hebrew literature.
It treats of geometry and trigonometry as introductory to the subject-matter; of the structure and position of the globe; of the number and movements of the celestial spheres; of the time differences in days and nights in the various parts of the earth; of the movements of sun and moon; of the solstices, the neomeniæ, the eclipses, and the leap-years; it contains as well astronomical tables (an ephemeris) and a perpetual calendar. It also deals (iv, § 17) with the chronological systems of other nations and religions, especially Christianity; and gives (iv, § 18) in chronological order the noted personages of the Biblical, Talmudic, and geonic periods, following the Sefer ha-Qabbalah of Abraham ibn Daud. This last was included by Zacuto in his Sefer ha-Yuḥasin.
The Yesod Olam was first published at Berlin, in 1777, by Jacob Shklower. A more complete edition, with a preface by David Cassel, was published by B. Goldberg and L. Rosenkranz (1848). Israeli's work was much studied in the Middle Ages. Isaac al-Hadib, Judah Bassan, and Elijah Mizrahi annotated it, and an anonymous author wrote a commentary to it (Neubauer, Cat. Bodl. Hebr. MSS. Nos. 2044, 746, 5). An abridgment was made in Arabic by the author's son Joseph Israeli ben Isaac, of which the Hebrew translation, Kitzur Yesod Olam is still extant (ib. No. 1319, 6).
Israeli was also the author of two other astronomical works, Sha'ar ha-Shamayim and Sha'ar ha-Milu'im, both extant in manuscript (ib. No. 2046).
Famous quotes containing the words isaac, israeli, ben and/or joseph:
“Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.”
—Bible: Hebrew Jacob, in Genesis, 27:11.
To his mother Rebekah, explaining how the blind Isaac might discover the ploy of his pretending to be Esau. “Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.” (25:27)
“Both gossip and joking are intrinsically valuable activities. Both are essentially social activities that strengthen interpersonal bonds—we do not tell jokes and gossip to ourselves. As popular activities that evade social restrictions, they often refer to topics that are inaccessible to serious public discussion. Gossip and joking often appear together: when we gossip we usually tell jokes and when we are joking we often gossip as well.”
—Aaron Ben-Ze’Ev, Israeli philosopher. “The Vindication of Gossip,” Good Gossip, University Press of Kansas (1994)
“Mrs. Robinson, you’re trying to seduce me. Aren’t you?”
—Calder Willingham, screenwriter, Buck Henry, screenwriter, and Mike Nichols. Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman)
“If you tie a horse to a stake, do you expect he will grow fat? If you pen an Indian up on a small spot of earth, and compel him to stay there, he will not be contented, nor will he grow and prosper. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees white men going where they please. They can not tell me.”
—Chief Joseph (c. 1840–1904)