(Google-translated from Portugese language)
Jacob Rodrigues Pereira (1715-1780), educator and researcher, Portuguese Jew of the eighteenth century, was a pioneer in teaching deaf mutes and the creation of sign language.
Born in Peniche within a Jewish family with roots in Chacim, Macedo de Cavaleiros, emigrated to France as a child led by parents, Rodrigues Pereira Magalhães and Ribea Abigail Rodrigues, who tried to escape the Inquisition. The family settled permanently in Bordeaux, where there was already a sizable community of Portuguese Jews. It is here that Jacob, six, is submitted to the Brit Milah (circumcision), a ritual that the Inquisition in Portugal forbidden under penalty of death.
Painting of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira – possibly with a deaf child.
Hailed as one of the greatest educators of the eighteenth century, Jacob Rodrigues Pereira joined the Academy, where he had friends and admirers among the great figures of French culture and science of the time, among which stand out Georges-Louis Leclerc , Comte de Buffon (1707-1788).
Their study ” Observations sur les-sourds muets “, published Paris in 1762, is considered the first scientific work ever written about deaf people and earned him an annuity granted by King Louis XV. Following its investigation, Jacob Rodrigues Pereira would develop the first drafts of sign language, allowing communication with the deaf mutes, hitherto considered “mentally ill” by the doctrines dominant. Jacob Rodrigues Pereira is buried in the Jewish cemetery Villette in Paris.
Like other Portuguese Jews forced into exile, the name of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira is virtually unknown in Portugal. This despite having been founded in Lisbon in 1834, the Institute Jacob Rodrigues Pereira , a pioneer in teaching deaf and now integrated in Portugal Casa Pia in Lisbon. With a presence on the Internet, the Institute makes no mention of the man who inspired its creation.
Descendants of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira remained in France, where he eventually Frenchified his name into Pereire in the early nineteenth century. One of the most respected members of this family of Portuguese Jews who emigrated was Jacob Emile Pereire (1800-1875), great-grandson of Jacob Rodrigues Pereira, banker and parliamentary born in Bordeaux.
In 1835 Emile Jacob was responsible for the construction of the railway between Paris and Saint Germain and later founded, with his brother Isaac, Société Générale de Crédit Mobilier, which would become the largest banking institution in France. The two brother (see Connaissez-vous vraiment les Frères Pereire? ) would also create, in 1855, the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique (see also French Line ), the first French company to ensure maritime careers vapors regularly between New York and Havre. The ship Pereire was then the fastest Atlantic crossing in 1867 ensuring between France and the United States in eight days and 16 hours. When the Crédit Mobilier filed for bankruptcy, Emile Jacob gave $ 16 million of his own money to prevent the collapse of the institution. When he died, the fortune of Jacob Emile Pereire was estimated at over $ 60 million.
He was commemorated on a 1981 International Year of Disabled Persons (IYDP) coin from Portugal.
An avenue in Paris (and a subway station), near the Champs-Elysées, today bears the family name. The Pereire converted to Catholicism in the late nineteenth century, by “social issues” as a way to cope with the French antisemitism. Still, the family continued to maintain close ties with the French Jewish community.
Source: Wikipedia, Facebook
