Sefer haYashar means "Book of the Upright One", but Jashar is generally left untranslated into English and so Sefer haYashar is often rendered as Book of Jasher.
Chovot HaLevavot, or Ḥobot HaLebabot, is the primary work of the Jewish rabbi, Bahya ibn Paquda, full name Bahya ben Joseph ibn Pakuda. Rabbi Ibn Paquda is believed to have lived in Zaragoza, Al-Andalus in the eleventh century.
Jacob ben Meir, best known as Rabbeinu Tam, was one of the most renowned Ashkenazi Jewish rabbis and leading French Tosafists, a leading halakhic authority in his generation, and a grandson of Rashi. Known as "Rabbeinu", he acquired the Hebrew suffix "Tam" meaning straightforward; it was originally used in the Book of Genesis to describe his biblical namesake, Jacob.
Aharon ben Joseph haLevi, known by his Hebrew acronym Ra'aH, was a medieval rabbi, Talmudic scholar and Halakhist.
Bahya ben Asher ibn Halawa was a rabbi and scholar of Judaism, best known as a commentator on the Hebrew Bible. He is one of two scholars now referred to as Rabbeinu Behaye, the other being philosopher Bahya ibn Paquda.
Joseph Kimchi or Qimḥi (1105–1170) was a medieval Jewish rabbi and biblical commentator. He was the father of Moses and David Kimhi, and the teacher of Rabbi Menachem Ben Simeon and poet Joseph Zabara.
Nethanel ben Isaiah was a Yemenite Jewish rabbi, Biblical commentator and poet of the fourteenth century. He is best known as the author of a homiletic commentary on the Torah entitled Nur al-Zulm wa-Mashbah al-Hikm, translated into Hebrew as Sefer Me'or ha-Afelah.
Rabbi Isaac ben Jacob or Yitzhak ben Yaakov, nicknamed "ha-Lavan" or "the white" was a 12th-century rabbi of Bohemia. He was a Tosafist and liturgical poet who flourished at Prague in the late 12th century.
Elijah Mizrachi was a Talmudist and posek, an authority on Halakha, and a mathematician. He is best known for his Sefer ha-Mizrachi, a supercommentary on Rashi's commentary on the Torah. He is also known as Re'em, the Hebrew acronym for "Rabbi Elijah Mizrachi", coinciding with the Biblical name of an animal, the re'em, which sometimes translated as "unicorn".
Zerachiah ben Isaac ha-Levi Gerondi, called the ReZaH, RaZBI or Baal Ha-Maor was born about 1115 in the town of Gerona, Catalonia, Spain – hence the name Gerondi – and died after 1186 in Lunel. He was a famous rabbi, Torah and Talmud commentator and a poet.
Isaac Israeli ben Joseph or Yitzhak ben Yosef was a Spanish-Jewish astronomer/astrologer who flourished at Toledo in the first half of the fourteenth century.
Moses of Kiev was a Jewish Talmudist who lived in the first half of the 12th century. Moses seems to have been in western Europe in consequence of the expulsion of the Jews from Kiev in 1124. It is not impossible that he was a pupil of Jacob b. Meïr Tam, whom he seems to have known. From Rus' Moses carried on a correspondence with Samuel ben Ali, the head of the Babylonian academy, and through Moses Western scholars learned of an important legal decision of the Geonim which had been communicated to him by Samuel. Another responsum from Samuel to Moses is found in the manuscript Yiḥuse Tanna'im wa-Amora'im, whose author is probably Judah ben Kalonymus of Speyer. Whether or not this Moses is identical with "Rabbi Moses the Russian", whom the author of Sefer ha-Shoham mentions, is doubtful.
Hasun ben Mashiach was a Karaite scholar who flourished in Egypt in the first half of the tenth century. According to Steinschneider, "Hasun" is a corrupted form of the Arabic name "Hussain," the ו being easily confounded in manuscript with the י Hasun, or, as he is generally quoted by the Karaite authorities, ben Mashiah, was a younger contemporary of Saadia Gaon, whom, according to Sahl ben Matzliah in his Tokahat Megullah, he once challenged to a religious controversy. Hasun was the author of a polemical work, written probably in Arabic, in which he refuted one of Saadia's unpublished anti-Karaite writings, which came into his possession after the death of the author. Owing to a misunderstanding of a passage in the Eshkol ha-Kofer of Hadassi, Ḥasun was erroneously credited with the authorship of the anonymous chapter on theodicy, entitled Sha'ar Tzedek, in the religio-philosophical work "Zikron ha-Datot," and of Quppat ha-Rokelim. Simḥah Isaac Luzki attributes to Ḥasun also a work on the precepts. Abraham ibn Ezra, in his introduction to the commentary on the Pentateuch, quotes a Karaite scholar named Ben Mashiah, who is probably identical with Hasun.
Rabbi Isaac ben Asher HaLevi or Riba (ריב"א) is the earliest known Tosafist, son-in-law of Eliakim ben Meshullam and pupil of Rashi. He flourished in Speyer during the 11th century.
Judah ben Barzillai (Albargeloni) was a Catalan Talmudist of the end of the 11th and the beginning of the 12th century. Almost nothing is known of his life. He came of a very distinguished family, on account of which he was not seldom called "ha-Nasi" (the prince), a title of honor borne also by his descendants in Barcelona.
Zerahiah ben Shealtiel Ḥen, also called Zerahiah ben Shealtiel Gracian or Serachja ben Isaac Ben Shealtiel Halevi was a Spanish Jewish physician, philosopher, translator, and Hebraist. He flourished about the end of the thirteenth century. He was born either at Barcelona, or at Toledo. He is sometimes confused with Zerahiah ben Isaac ha-Levi Saladin, also a translator.
Jacob ben Joab Elijah da Fano was an Italian rabbi and Hebrew poet; he lived at Ferrara and Ancona about the middle of the sixteenth century. He was the teacher of Abraham Portaleone.
Machir ben Judah was a French Jewish scholar of the tenth and eleventh centuries, born at Metz, and brother of R. Gershom "the Light of the Exile".
Meir ben Samuel, also known by the Hebrew acronym RaM for Rabbi Meir, was a French rabbi and tosafist, who was born in about 1060 in Ramerupt, and died after 1135. His father was an eminent scholar. Meir received his education in the Talmudical schools of Lorraine, his principal teachers being Isaac ben Asher ha-Levi and Eleazar ben Isaac of Mainz, with whom he later carried on a correspondence.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (1901–1906). The Jewish Encyclopedia . New York: Funk & Wagnalls.