VAN OVEN

VAN OVEN, English family of physicians and communal workers. The founder is said to have been an Italian Jew named Samuel Bassan who settled in Oven (Hoven, Holland). ABRAHAM VAN OVEN (d. 1778. settled in London in 1759 after graduating in medicine at Leiden, and became physician to the Great Synagogue in 1767. He translated into Hebrew R. Dodsley's Oeconomy of Human Life (London, 1778). His son, JOSHUA VAN OVEN (1766–1838), was also surgeon to the Great Synagogue and a leading figure in London communal life. His Letters on the Present State of the Jewish Poor in the Metropolis (London, 1802), in answer to the strictures of the magistrate Patrick Colquhoun, initiated a systematic attempt to grapple with the social problems of London Jewry. He was foremost among the founders of the Jews' Free School and published a Manual of Judaism in 1835 for school use. Van Oven served as the school's president for many years. He was the father of BARNARD VAN OVEN (1796–1860), physician to the Great Synagogue from 1827, who was active in the movement for Jewish emancipation in England and published some effective pamphlets. He was a founder of the Jews' Infant Schools in 1841. Barnard's son, LIONEL VAN OVEN (1829–1905), besides being active in Jewish communal work, was a pioneer in the oral instruction of deaf-mutes. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. Picciotto, Sketches of Anglo-Jewish History (19502), index; C. Roth, History of the Great Synagogue (1959), index; P. Emden, Jews of Britain (1943), index; Levin, in: JHSET, 19 (1955–59), 97–114; Roth, Mag Bibl., index; JC (Jan. 13,20,27, 1905). ADD. BIBLIOGRAPHY: ODNB online; G. Black, JFS: The History of the Jews' Free School since 1832 (1998). (Cecil Roth)