Israel ben Joseph Halevi Caslari (, ), also known as Crescas Caslari and Israel ben Joseph Halevi, was a Jewish physician and poet who lived at Avignon in 1327. He was the author of a liturgic poem for Purim, beginning with the words מי כמוך ("Who is like you?"). In a manuscript of this poem (Rev. Et. Juives, ix. 116) the signature contains the words לבני יצהר ("To the sons of Yitzhar"), from which Neubauer concludes that Crescas Caslari belonged to the family of the Yitzhari. This opinion, shared by Leopold Zunz, is criticized by Gross, who holds that the appellation is merely honorary, as it is in the Bible (Zech. iv. 14).
According to Zunz, Caslari was the author of a poem on the story of Esther and Mordecai, which he translated into the vernacular. A fragment of a Provençal poem by Maestro Crescas has been published in Romania (April, 1892). Caslari also translated Arnaud de Villeneuve's medical work entitled Liber de Regimine Sanitatis, dedicating it to James II of Aragon.
Famous quotes containing the words israel and/or ben:
“For in the division of the nations of the whole earth he set a ruler over every people; but Israel is the Lords portion: whom, being his firstborn, he nourisheth with discipline, and giving him the light of his love doth not forsake him. Therefore all their works are as the sun before him, and his eyes are continually upon their ways.”
—Apocrypha. Ecclesiasticus 17:17-9.
“Mrs. Robinson, youre trying to seduce me. Arent you?”
—Calder Willingham, screenwriter, Buck Henry, screenwriter, and Mike Nichols. Ben Braddock (Dustin Hoffman)