Ya'ish, Baruch ben Isaac ibn
YA'ISH, BARUCH BEN ISAAC IBN
YA'ISH, BARUCH BEN ISAAC IBN (15th century), philosopher and translator. Probably born in Spain, Ibn Ya'ish lived and died in Italy. He had a good knowledge of Hebrew, Latin, and Arabic. Ibn Ya'ish wrote a Hebrew commentary in ten chapters on Avicenna's De Medicamentibus Cordialibus ("On Cardiac Remedies") entitled Be'ur la-Sammim ha-Libbiyyim, in which he quotes Aristotle and Averroes (Bodl, Ms. Mich., Add. 16).
He translated Aristotle's Metaphysics into Hebrew from the Latin at the request of Samuel Ẓarphati, under the title Mah she-Aḥar ha-Teva (Bodl. Mich., 421). In the introduction to his translation Ibn Ya'ish explains that he based his translation on the Latin, rather than the Arabic, because the Arabic was confused. It also seems that Ibn Ya'ish had a role in producing a Hebrew translation of an anonymous Latin commentary on Aristotle's Ethics. A commentary on the Song of Songs, Ecclesiastes, Proverbs, and Job, which is called Mekor Barukh (Constantinople, 1576), and which bears the name Baruch ibn Ya'ish, was written by Ibn Ya'ish's great-grandson and namesake.
bibliography:
Steinschneider, Cat Bod, 774, no. 4508; Steinschneider, Uebersetzungen, 157–8, 218, 485, 701; Michael, Or, 626.
[Hirsch Jacob Zimmels]