Joseph Pallache
| Joseph Pallache | |
|---|---|
| Born | circa 1570 Fez, Morocco |
| Died | 1638, 1639, 1657 Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Burial place | Beth Haim of Ouderkerk aan de Amstel |
| Other names | alternative spellings of surname: Joseph Palache, Jozef Pallache |
| Years active | 1600s - 1638 |
| Known for | Moroccan-Dutch trade agreement (1608) |
| Notable work | first Portuguese minyan Amsterdam |
| Children | Isaac, Joshua, David, Moses, Abraham |
| Parent(s) | Isaac Pallache of Fez, rabbi |
| Relatives | Samuel Pallache (brother) and nephews Isaac and Jacob (Carlos) |
| Family | Pallache family |
Joseph Pallache (c. 1580 – 1638/1648/1657), was a Jewish-Moroccan-born merchant and diplomat of the Pallache family, who, as envoy, helps his brother conclude a treaty with the Dutch Republic in 1608.
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.
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'."
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.") (The surname is spelled "Palache" on his death certificate.)
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. 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.
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