Joseph Pallache
Bornc. 1570
Fez, Morocco
Died1637,1638,1639,1648,1649,1657[1][2][3][4]
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Burial placeBeth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel
Other namesalternative spellings of surname: Joseph Palache, Jozef Pallache[5][6]
Years active1600s - 1638
Known forMoroccan-Dutch trade agreement (1608)
Notable workfirst Portuguese minyan Amsterdam[7]
ChildrenIsaac, Joshua, David, Moses, Abraham
Parent(s)Isaac Pallache of Fez, rabbi
RelativesSamuel Pallache (brother) and nephews Isaac and Jacob (Carlos)
FamilyPallache family

Joseph Pallache (c. 1570 – 1637/1638/1639/1648/1649/1657[1][2][3][4][6]), was a Jewish Moroccan merchant and diplomat of the Pallache family, who, as envoy, helped his brother conclude a treaty with the Dutch Republic in 1608.[5]

Background

Pallache was born in Fez, Morocco. His father, Isaac Pallache, was a rabbi there, first mentioned in takkanot (Jewish community statutes) in 1588. His brother was Samuel Pallache. His uncle was Fez's grand rabbi, Judah Uziel, whose son Isaac Uziel was a rabbi of the Neve Shalom community in Amsterdam.[5]

His family originated from Islamic Spain, where his father had served as rabbi in Córdoba. According to Professor Mercedes García-Arenal, "The Pallaches were a Sephardi family perhaps descended from the Bene Palyāj mentioned by the twelfth-century chronicler Abraham Ibn Da’ud as 'the greatest of the families of Cordoba'."[8]

Sometime in the first half of the 16th Century, following the Christian conquest of Islamic Spain (the Reconquista), the family fled to Morocco, where Jews, like Christians, were tolerated as long as they accepted Islam as the official religion. How they arrived is unclear. One Italian historian states, "Verso i Paesi Bassi emigra anche la famiglia Pallache, forse dal Portogallo o dalla Spagna, oppure, secundo un'altra ipotesti, dalla nativa Spagna emigra a Fez, dove un Isaac Pallache è rabbino new 1588" (translation: "The Pallache family also emigrated to the Netherlands, perhaps from Portugal or Spain, or, second, another hypothesizes, they emigrated [directly] from their native Spain to Fez, where Isaac Pallache rabbi was in 1588.")[9] (The surname is spelled "Palache" on his death certificate.[3]

Career

After a delegation from the Dutch Republic visited Morocco to discuss a common alliance against Spain and the Barbary pirates, sultan Zidan Abu Maali in 1608 appointed the merchant brothers Samuel and Joseph Pallache to be his envoys to the Dutch government in The Hague. Officially, they served as his "agents", not ambassador. The Pallaches received the support of stadholder Maurice of Nassau and the States-General in The Hague and negotiated an alliance of mutual assistance against Spain. On December 24, 1610, the two nations signed the Treaty of Friendship and Free Commerce, an agreement recognizing free commerce between the Netherlands and Morocco and allowing the sultan to purchase ships, arms and munitions from the Dutch.[10] This was one of the first official treaties between a European country and a non-Christian nation, after the 16th-Century treaties of the Franco-Ottoman alliance.[citation needed]

After his brother Samuel's death in 1616, Joseph inherited his brother Samuel's position as lead agent for Morocco in the Netherlands. When he traveled to Morocco, his son David Palache served as his deputy. During one of his trips to Morocco, he and his son Moses tried to build a new port near Cape Cantin; the effort failed.[5][8][6]

Death

[Archive card number] 19218
Name: Palache
Given Name: Joseph
Birth: (-)
Married to: (-)
Wedding date: (-)
Death: 1639 or 1649
Buried: (field) A 13 - 175
Notes: Buried near brother
agent of the King of Barbary
son Moses
[3]

Pallache's date of death varies widely in reports. His burial record shows a 10-year discrepancy of "1639 or 1649."[3]

He is buried next to his brother Samuel in Ouderkerk aan de Amstel near Amsterdam. The record for his grave spells his name as "Palache."[3]

Legacy

Co-founder of Amsterdam Sephardic community

In the first pages of his 1769 Memorias do Estabelecimento e Progresso dos Judeos Portuguezes e Espanhoes nesta Famosa Cidade de Amsterdam, David Franco Mendes records the first minyan in Amsterdam with its sixteen worshippers: Jacob Israel Belmonte (father of Moses Belmonte), David Querido, Jacob Tirado, Samuel Pallache, Ury a Levy, Joseph Pallache, Jacob Uriel Cardoso, Isaac Gaon, Samuel Abrabanel Souza, Jeosuah Sarfati, Joseph Habilho, David Abendana Pereyra, Baruch Osorio, Abraham Gabay, Isaac Franco Medeyro, Moseh de Casserez.[11][12] Several sources claim this first minyan occurred in Palache's home, as he was the most prominent among them, being envoy from Morocco[7][13] and occurred around 1590[14] or Yom Kippur 1596.[15][16]

Family (Mediterranean rabbis)

Both Les noms des juifs du Maroc and A Man of Three Worlds describe several generations of Pallache family members, which forms the basis of the family descent shown below.[2][5]

He had five sons, Isaac, Joshua, David, Moses, and Abraham, among whom Moses and David were the most influential after Samuel's death and more than their own father Joseph.[5]

Portuguese-Spanish Sephardic intermarriage

Although the authors of A Man of Three Worlds clearly state that neither Samuel and Joseph's generation nor their children's married into the Portuguese (versus Spanish) Sephardic community of Amsterdam, documents in Amsterdam show otherwise. There exist two 1643 marriage certificates for David Pallache and Judith Lindo of Antwerp, daughter of Ester Lindo[17][18] plus the death details for David.[19] Three years later, in 1646, Samuel Pallache, nephew of David, then marries Abigail (born 1622), sister of Judith Lindo.[20]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Rahmani, Moïse (December 1990). "Les Patronymes: une histoire de nom ou histoire tout court" [A Story of a Name or a Short History] (PDF). Los Muestros (in French). Sefard (Institut Sephardi Europeen). Retrieved 11 September 2016.
  2. ^ a b c Laredo, Abraham Isaac (1978). Les noms des juifs de Maroc: Essai d'onomastique judéo-marocaine. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas - Instituto Arias Montano. pp. 966–971.
  3. ^ a b c d e f "Burials of the Portuguese Israelite Congregation - Palache, Joseph". Dutch Jewry. Archived from the original on 22 August 2018. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  4. ^ a b "Begraafplaats Ouderkerk a/d Amstel - Palache, Joseph". Dutch Jewry. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  5. ^ a b c d e f García-Arenal, Mercedes; Wiegers, Gerard (2007). A Man of Three Worlds: Samuel Pallache, a Moroccan Jew in Catholic and Protestant Europe. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 12 (background, surname), 101–127 (descendants). doi:10.1353/book.14092. ISBN 9780801895838.
  6. ^ a b c Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek. Sijthoff. pp. 422–423. Retrieved 26 September 2016.
  7. ^ a b Kurlansky, Mark (2008). A Chosen Few: The Resurrection of European Jewry. New York: Random House. p. 82. ISBN 9780307482891. Retrieved 31 August 2016.
  8. ^ a b García-Arenal, Mercedes (2010), "Pallache Family (Moroccan Branch)", in Stillman, Norman A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World, vol. 4, Brill
  9. ^ Fiume, Giovanna (2012). Schiavitù mediterranee. Corsari, rinnegati e santi di età moderna. Milan: Bruno Mondadori. ISBN 9788861595606. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
  10. ^ Poetry, politics and polemics by Ed de Moor, Otto Zwartjes, G. J. H. van Gelder p.127
  11. ^ Henriques Castro, David (1875). 1675-1875: De synagoge der Portugeesch-Israelietische gemeente te Amsterdam. Belinfante. p. 5. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  12. ^ Brasz, Chaya; Kaplan, Yosef, eds. (2001). Dutch Jews As Perceived by Themselves and by Others: Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium on the History of the Jews in the Netherlands. Brill. p. 67. ISBN 9004120386.
  13. ^ Skolnik, Frank; Berenbaum, Michael, eds. (2007). Encyclopaedia Judaica, Volume 15. Macmillan Reference. p. 573. ISBN 9780028659435.
  14. ^ Kritzler, Edward (2009). "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean". Penguin Random House. pp. 10 (background), 75–92 (chapter). Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  15. ^ Henriques Castro, David (1999). Keur van grafstenen op de Portugees-Isräelietische begraafplaats te Ouderkerk aan de Amstel met beschrijving en biografische aantekeningen: met platen. Stichting tot Instandhouding en Onderhoud van Historische Joodse Begraafplaatsen in Nederland. pp. 36 (first minyan), 91–93. ISBN 9789090128290. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  16. ^ Fendel, Zechariah (2001). Lights of the Exile. Hashkafah Publications. pp. 45–46. ISBN 9781583302125. Retrieved 1 September 2016.
  17. ^ "Amsterdam - Traditional Sephardic marriages - David Palache and Judith Lindo". Dutch Jewry. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  18. ^ "Amsterdam - Traditional Sephardic marriages - David Palache and Judith Lindo". Dutch Jewry. Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  19. ^ "Begraafplaats Ouderkerk a/d Amstel - Palache, David". Dutch Jewry. Retrieved 8 September 2016.
  20. ^ "Amsterdam - Traditional Sephardic marriages - David Palache and Judith Lindo". Dutch Jewry. Archived from the original on 16 September 2016. Retrieved 8 September 2016.

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