Joseph Navon

Yosef Navon (; 1858–1934) was a Jerusalem businessman and the man principally responsible for the construction of the Jaffa–Jerusalem railway. For his effort, Navon was awarded the Légion d'honneur from the French government, and the Medjidie from the Turkish government, where he was also promoted to the title of Bey.

Biography Navon was born in Jerusalem to a Sephardic Jewish family which was part of Jerusalem's wealthy Sephardic elite. His father, rabbi Eliyahu Pinchas Navon, was selected by the Ottomans to represent the Yishuv Jews at the Porte, and his mother came from the Amzallag family, also of the Sephardic elite in the Yishuv. His paternal grandfather was Yehuda Navon, a Rishon LeZion. He was educated in a Jerusalem yeshiva and finished his education at a school in Marseille. Lacking the capital to proceed, Navon went to Europe in 1889 to find a buyer for the concession. Camille Collas, a lighthouse inspector, bought it for a million francs. On December 29, 1889, the Societe du Chemin de Fer Ottoman de Jaffa a Jerusalem et Prolongement was founded in Paris with Collas as the first director

For his service of French interests in the project, Navon received the Légion d'honneur from the French government. In 1893, he was awarded the Medjidie by the Ottomans, and later received the title of Bey.

By the time Navon accumulated sufficient personal wealth, he had a number of projects in mind: a new port in Palestine, electricity and water supply projects in Jerusalem, and a railway to the city.

After the railway construction was completed, Navon set out to pursue some of the other projects, for which he had already acquired permits. However, the profits from the railway were not sufficient to finance these, and in 1894 Navon set out to Paris, likely to look for investors. He never returned to Jerusalem, and after a 1901 meeting with Theodor Herzl about development in the Yishuv, which the latter was not impressed with, Navon stopped his activity in the region. He spent the remainder of his days living off his title of "Bey" at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. He died in France in 1934 under the care of his Niece in Law (Jewess socialite "The Charleston Queen of Paris", business owner, and WW2 French resistance leader Odette Nissim) and Nephew (Art Dealer Emmanuel Navon).

Biographies "The Biography in Historical-Geographical Research - Navon Bey: A Case Study," in The Land that became Israel: studies in historical geography, Ruth Kark, Yale University Press, 1989, pp. 77–89. Glass, Joseph B. "Joseph Navon Bey (1858-1934): A Local Entrepreneur and His Contribution to the Changing Landscape of Eretz Yisrael in the Late 19th Century", thesis, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1988.