Joseph Pallache ( – 1637/1638/1639/1648/1649/1657), was a

Jew Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""Th ...

ish- Moroccan-born merchant and diplomat of the

Pallache family "Pallache" – also de Palacio(s), Palache, Palaçi, Palachi, Palacci, Palaggi, and many other variations (documented below) – is the surname of a prominent, Ladino-speaking, Sephardic Jewish family from the Iberian Peninsula, who spread mostl ...

, who, as envoy, helped his brother conclude a treaty with the

Dutch Republic The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...

in 1608.

Background

Pallache was born in

Fez, Morocco Fez or Fes (; ar, فاس, fās; zgh, ⴼⵉⵣⴰⵣ, fizaz; french: Fès) is a city in northern inland Morocco and the capital of the Fès-Meknès, Fès-Meknès administrative region. It is the List of cities in Morocco, second largest city i ...

. His father, Isaac Pallache, was a rabbi there, first mentioned in ''

takkanot A ''takkanah'' (plural ''takkanot'') is a major legislative enactment within ''halakha'' (Jewish law), the normative system of Judaism's laws. A ''takkanah'' is an enactment which revises an ordinance that no longer satisfies the requirements of t ...

'' (Jewish community statutes) in 1588. His brother was

Samuel Pallache Samuel Pallache (Arabic: صامويل آل بالاتش, ''Shmuel Baylash'', Hebrew: 'שמואל פאלאץ, ''Shmuel Palach'', c. 1550 – February 4, 1616) was a Jewish Moroccan-born merchant, diplomat, and pirate of the Pallache family, who, ...

. His uncle was Fez's grand rabbi,

Judah Uziel Judah Uziel (d. 1634, Venice, probably; ''Jewish Encyclopedia'' of 1971 says he died ca. 1600) was an Italian scholar of the 16th century, born in Spain. He was the author of sixteen sermons on the Pentateuch The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā' ...

, whose son

Isaac Uziel Isaac ben Abraham Uziel (died 1 April 1622, Amsterdam) ( he, יצחק בן אברהם עזיאל) was a Moroccan physician, poet and grammarian, born at Fez, Morocco. At one time he held the position of rabbi at Oran, Algeria, but late in life he ...

was a rabbi of the Neve Shalom community in Amsterdam. His family originated from

Islamic Spain Al-Andalus DIN 31635, translit. ; an, al-Andalus; ast, al-Ándalus; eu, al-Andalus; ber, ⴰⵏⴷⴰⵍⵓⵙ, label=Berber languages, Berber, translit=Andalus; ca, al-Àndalus; gl, al-Andalus; oc, Al Andalús; pt, al-Ândalus; es, ...

, where his father had served as

rabbi A rabbi () is a spiritual leader or religious teacher in Judaism. One becomes a rabbi by being ordained by another rabbi – known as ''semikha'' – following a course of study of Jewish history and texts such as the Talmud. The basic form of ...

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'." Sometime in the first half of the 16th Century, following the Christian conquest of Islamic Spain (the ''

Reconquista The ' (Spanish, Portuguese and Galician for "reconquest") is a historiographical construction describing the 781-year period in the history of the Iberian Peninsula between the Umayyad conquest of Hispania in 711 and the fall of the Nasrid ...

''), the family fled to Morocco, where Jews, like Christians, were tolerated as long as they accepted

Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...

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 irectlyfrom their native Spain to Fez, where Isaac Pallache rabbi was in 1588.") (The surname is spelled "Palache" on his death certificate.

Career

After a delegation from the

visited Morocco to discuss a common alliance against

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

and the

Barbary pirate The Barbary pirates, or Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as t ...

s, sultan

Zidan Abu Maali Zidan Abu Maali ( ar, زيدان أبو معالي) (? – September 1627; or Muley Zidan) was the embattled Saadi Sultan of Morocco from 1603 to 1627. He was the son and heir of Ahmad al-Mansur by his wife Lalla Aisha bint Abu Bakkar, a lady of ...

in 1608 appointed the merchant brothers Samuel and Joseph Pallache to be his envoys to the Dutch government in

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

. Officially, they served as his "agents", not ambassador. The Pallaches received the support of

stadholder In the Low Countries, ''stadtholder'' ( nl, stadhouder ) was an office of steward, designated a medieval official and then a national leader. The ''stadtholder'' was the replacement of the duke or count of a province during the Burgundian and H ...

Maurice of Nassau Maurice of Orange ( nl, Maurits van Oranje; 14 November 1567 – 23 April 1625) was '' stadtholder'' of all the provinces of the Dutch Republic except for Friesland from 1585 at the earliest until his death in 1625. Before he became Prince ...

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.''Poetry, politics and polemics'' by Ed de Moor, Otto Zwartjes, G. J. H. van Gelder p.127
/ref> 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 The Franco-Ottoman Alliance, also known as the Franco-Turkish Alliance, was an alliance established in 1536 between the King of France Francis I and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire Suleiman I. The strategic and sometimes tactical alliance was o ...

. 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 Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...

tried to build a new port near Cape Cantin; the effort failed.

Death

Pallache's date of death varies widely in reports. His burial record shows a 10-year discrepancy of "1639 or 1649." He is buried next to his brother Samuel in

Ouderkerk aan de Amstel Ouderkerk aan de Amstel () is a town in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It is largely a part of the municipality of Ouder-Amstel; it lies about 9 km south of Amsterdam. A small part of the town lies in the municipality of Amstelvee ...

near

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

. The record for his grave spells his name as "Palache."

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 David Franco Mendes (; 13 August 1713 – 10 October 1792), also known as David Ḥofshi (), was a Dutch-Jewish Hebrew-language poet. He was an early member of the Haskalah in Holland. Biography A businessman, he devoted his leisure hours to the ...

records the first

minyan In Judaism, a ''minyan'' ( he, מניין \ מִנְיָן ''mīnyān'' , lit. (noun) ''count, number''; pl. ''mīnyānīm'' ) is the quorum of ten Jewish adults required for certain religious obligations. In more traditional streams of Jud ...

in Amsterdam with its sixteen worshippers: Jacob Israel Belmonte (father of

Moses Belmonte Moses Belmonte (1619 – 29 May 1647 in Amsterdam) was a poet and translator, the eighth child of Jacob Belmonte, also known as Jacob Israel Belmonte. He was a pupil of Saul Levi Morteira Saul Levi Morteira or Mortera ( 1596 – 10 Fe ...

), David Querido,

Jacob Tirado Jacob Tirado (born ca. 1540; died in Jerusalem 1620) was one of the founders of the Spanish-Portuguese community of Amsterdam. With several Marranos he sailed from Portugal in a vessel which was driven out of its course to Emden in East Friesla ...

, 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. Several sources claim this first ''minyan'' occurred in Palache's home, as he was the most prominent among them, being envoy from Morocco and occurred around 1590 or Yom Kippur 1596.

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. 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.

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 plus the death details for David. Three years later, in 1646, Samuel Pallache, nephew of David, then marries Abigail (born 1622), sister of Judith Lindo.

References

External sources

* * * * *
Anno: Joodse Marokkaan onder christenen
(Dutch)
Universiteit Leiden: Openingscollege 400 jaar Marokkaans - Nederlandse betrekkingen
(Dutch)

(Dutch) * ttp://www.wereldomroep.nl/actua/nl/nederland/geschiedenis/nederlandmarokko/pallache050202 Wereldomroep: Diplomaat, handelaar, kaper en geleerde(Dutch) {{DEFAULTSORT:Pallache, Joseph Moroccan businesspeople Dutch Sephardi Jews 17th-century Moroccan Jews 1637 deaths 1638 deaths 1639 deaths 1648 deaths 1649 deaths 1657 deaths Moroccan pirates 1570s births Year of birth uncertain Moroccan diplomats People from Fez, Morocco Businesspeople from Amsterdam 16th-century Moroccan people 16th-century Dutch businesspeople 17th-century Moroccan people 17th-century Dutch businesspeople Moroccan people imprisoned abroad Moroccan emigrants to the Netherlands Jewish merchants 16th-century Moroccan Jews