CRESCAS, VIDAL, DE CASLAR (
; called also Crescas Caslari, corrupted into Kislad, Gislad, and Décadolas; Hebrew name, Israel b. Joseph ha-Levi):
Physician and liturgical poet of Avignon; member of the Yiẓhari family of that place. In 1327 Crescas translated into Hebrew the "Regimen Sanitatis" of his contemporary, the Spanish physician Arnold de Villanueva, under the title "Ma'amar be-Hanhagat ha-Beri'ut," the manuscripts of which are preserved in various libraries. Crescas wrote a poem for Purim, "Mi Kamoka" (Who Is Like unto Thee?), in about two hundred and forty stanzas, relating the story of the Book of Esther. A few stanzas have been published by Zunz, in "Allg. Zeit. des Jud." 1839, p. 681.
Bibliography:
- Steinschneider, Hebr. Uebers. p. 779;
- Gross, Gallia Judaica, pp. 7, 257, 619;
- Zunz, Literaturgesch. p. 504;
- idem, Z. G. p. 466;
- Landshuth, 'Ammude ha-Abodah, p. 153.
