Jean-Jacques Askenasy (b. 1929), neurologist, honorary member of the Romanian Academy, born in Sofia, Bulgaria. After moving to Romania, he studied at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Cluj graduating as Doctor in Medicine in 1954. He continued his studies at the clinic of the Institute of Neurology of the Romanian Academy and in 1972 he became a Doctor of Sciences following his studies at the University of Bucharest.
Askenasy immigrated to Israel in 1972 and started working as a neurologist at Ichilov Medical Center in Tel Aviv. He became a lecturer in the neurology department of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University and a researcher in neuroscience at the Weitzman Institute in Rehovot. In 1981 he was an associate professor at the Mount-Sinai School of Medicine at New York University. After returning to Israel, he was appointed Chairman of the Sleep Medicine Institute at Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan. In 1986 he was appointed associate professor at the Charcot Clinic of the Pierre et Marie Curie University in Paris, France, and in 1995 he became Professor at the Neurology Clinic of the Sackler Faculty of Medicine at Tel Aviv University. He authored 13 books, 22 chapters in books and and over 100 articles dealing with neurology and sleep medicine topics. Askenasy was elected an Honorary Member of the Academy of Men of Science of Romania and Member Honoris Causa of the Romanian Academy in 2016 and an Honorary Member of the Real Academia of Barcelona, Spain, in 2018. Askenasy served as President of the Israeli Sleep Medicine Association.