Jacques Halevy

Jacques-François-Fromental-Élie Halévy, usually known as Fromental Halévy (pronounced ) (27 May 1799 - 17 March 1862), was a French composer. He is known today largely for his opera La Juive.
Halévy was born in Paris, the son of a cantor, Élie Halfon Halévy, who was the secretary of the Jewish community of Paris, a writer and a teacher of Hebrew, and a French Jewish mother. The name Fromental, by which he was generally known, reflects that he was born on the feast-day of that name in the French Revolutionary calendar, which was still operative at that time. He entered the Conservatoire de Paris at the age of nine or ten (accounts differ), in 1809, becoming a pupil and later protégé of Cherubini. After two second-place attempts, he won the Prix de Rome in 1819: his cantata subject was Herminie.