יוסף בן ברוך

Rav Yosef ben Baruch, identified with Yosef of Clisson, was a French rishon of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and one of the baalei haTosafot. He lived for a time in Paris, where he was in the company of Rav Yehuda Sir Leon, and he taught particular subjects to Rav Shmuel of Falaise. In 4971/1211 he went up to Eretz Yisrael together with his brother Rav Meir, traveling by way of Egypt; it was most likely he who carried to England the Hebrew rendering of the Kuzari prepared by Yehuda Cardinal. Yehuda al-Charizi, in his Tachkemoni, tells of meeting the two brothers at the head of the newly gathered kehillah of Yerushalayim.

In the Tosafot he appears as Yosef of Yerushalayim and as Rav Yosef of Eretz Yisrael, and his explanations are brought by Rav Betzalel Ashkenazi in the Shittah Mekubetzet and in several commentaries on the Chumash. Teshuvot and a number of rulings in matters of issur v’heter are attributed to him, cited in the Hagahot Maimoniyot and in the Mordechai. He also composed piyutim, and a viduy of his for Yom Kippur was preserved in the machzor.