JAVAL

JAVAL , French family (the origin of the name is unknown). The founder, jacques javal (1786–1858) of Mulhouse, a banker in Paris, established one of the first printed-textile mills in Saint-Denis in 1819. He was president of the Paris *Consistoire from 1824 to 1829. His son leopold (1804–1872) participated in the July Revolution of 1830 and then joined the army, taking part in the Algerian campaign and becoming a cavalry officer. After returning to civilian life, he organized the railway network of Alsace, but he was especially interested in agricultural development. In 1857 he was elected deputy for Yonne. In the Chamber of Deputies and later at the National Assembly, he supported a program of political and economic liberalism. From 1852 to 1871, he was the Haut-Rhin delegate to the Central Consistory. His elder son emile (1839–1907) was a renowned oculist and member of the Academy of Medicine. He invented an apparatus for diagnosing astigmatism and a method of teaching reading. Director of the ophthalmological laboratory of the Sorbonne from 1878 to 1900, he published a number of books and encyclopedia articles in his field. From 1885 to 1889, he too was elected deputy for Yonne. His brother ernest (1843–1897), an engineer, was prefect of Creuse and, from 1885, director of the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. Emile's elder son jean (1871–1915) was also elected to the Chamber of Deputies. Jean's widow, lily jean-javal (née Léon-Lévy; 1882–1958), wrote a number of novels; two of them, Noémi (1925) and L'Inquiète (1927), deal with Jewish subjects, and the first part of her travelogue, Sous le charme du Portugal (1931), is concerned with the "search for the Marranos." Emile's second son adolphe (1873–1944) was a medical scholar mainly concerned with diseases of the blood, on which he published a number of works.

bibliography:

S. Bloch, in: Univers Israélite, 37 (1872), 493–5.

[Moshe Catane]