Rabbi Yaakov Anatoli רבי יעקב אנטולי

The Tibbonids were a family of translators: the grandfather Yehuda, the father Shmuel—and Rabbi Yaakov Anatoli entered it as a son-in-law, marrying Shmuel's daughter and continuing the work.

The emperor Frederick II summoned him to Naples, where the court translated everything from the Arabic, from medical books to expositions of Aristotle. There Anatoli translated the commentaries of Ibn Rushd; so texts that had been read only in Arabic became available in Hebrew and in Latin.

His own book is the Malmad ha-Talmidim, the Goad for Students: sermons on the weekly portions. It reads oddly—beside the explanation of a verse runs an argument built philosophically—and for exactly that it would later be both praised and reviled. In one generation Provence held both such books and those who demanded they be banned.