Rabbi Yossi HaGelili, Yose the Galilean, was one of the greatest Tannaim of the third generation, the generation of Yavneh. Neither his father's name nor the circumstances of his youth are known; his epithet shows that he was a native of Galilee, and he is known to have moved from Galilee to Yavneh. There he quickly joined the circle of the sages and became one of its leading figures: after the death of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, the Tosefta counts four great sages at Yavneh, Rabbi Yossi HaGelili, Rabbi Akiva, Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah and Rabbi Tarfon.

On the very day he arrived in Yavneh, still unknown, he debated with Rabbi Tarfon and Rabbi Akiva and put forward an argument that Rabbi Tarfon struggled to refute; from then on the two masters regarded him not as a pupil but as a colleague. He prevailed over Rabbi Akiva in halachah several times, and once Rabbi Akiva retracted his opinion in favor of his. He once said to him: "Akiva, even if you expound all day long, I will not listen to you." Rabbi Tarfon compared his way of learning to the "he-goat from the west" in Daniel's vision, which casts down the ram, that is, Rabbi Akiva. Tosafot note that he was younger than Rabbi Akiva but counted as a talmid-chaver. His method of interpretation differed little from Rabbi Akiva's, both often using the same rules.

He was known as a righteous and pious man. The Jerusalem Talmud relates that he was married to an ill-tempered woman whom he could not divorce for lack of money to pay her ketubah; Rabbi Elazar ben Azariah paid it in his place. When she, remarried to the town watchman who had gone blind and become poor, fell into destitution, Rabbi Yossi housed them both in a house he owned and supported them for the rest of their lives, in keeping with the verse "and hide not yourself from your own flesh." It was also said of him that he could bring rain through his prayer: "When Israel fall into sins and the rains are withheld, they bring them an elder such as Rabbi Yossi HaGelili, he intercedes for them and the rains fall."

Among his teachings: "Great is peace, for even in time of war one opens with an offer of peace"; "One who is engaged in a mitzvah is exempt from another mitzvah"; the permission to cook poultry in milk, as was done in his native town; the principle of efshar letzamtzem; and "there is no 'elder' (zaken) but one who has acquired wisdom," hence the duty to rise before a young scholar. His explanation of the rebellious son, who is "judged according to his end," is the best-known interpretation of that passage. His sons Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Shmuel and Rabbi Chanina were sages as well; Rabbi Eliezer ben Rabbi Yossi HaGelili became a great authority.

His hillula is observed on 15 Av. His burial place is not described in rabbinic literature, but tradition, older than most traditions about the graves of the righteous, places it in Dalton in the Upper Galilee: in 1083 Rav Evyatar Gaon recounts that his father, Rav Eliyahu HaKohen Gaon, who died in Tyre, was carried on men's shoulders for three days to Dalton and "buried on the top of the mountain beside Rabbi Yossi HaGelili." Beneath the present structure lies an ancient burial cave with loculi. Another tradition, that of Babylonian Jewry, places his grave in Baghdad.