Pallache family: Difference between revisions
Sephardic family from Spain
“Pallache” – also de Palacio(s), Palache, Palaçi, Palachi, Palacci, Palaggi, al-Fallashi, and many other variations (documented below) – is the surname of a prominent, Ladino-speaking, Sephardic Jewish family from the Iberian Peninsula, who spread mostly through the Mediterranean after the Alhambra Decree of March 31, 1492, and related events.[1][note 1]
The Pallache family have had connections with Moroccans, Spanish, Netherlands and Portuguese Sephardic Jewish communities, as detailed below.
The Pallaches established themselves in cities in Morocco, the Netherlands, Turkey, Egypt, and other countries from the 1500s through the 1900s. The family includes chief rabbis, rabbis, founders of synagogues and batei midrash, scientists, entrepreneurs, writers, and others. Best known to date are: Moroccan envoys and brothers Samuel Pallache (ca. 1550–1616) and Joseph Pallache, at least three grand rabbis of Izmir – Gaon.[6] Haim Palachi (1788–1868), his sons Abraham Palacci (1809–1899) and Rahamim Nissim Palacci (1814–1907), grand rabbi of Amsterdam Isaac Juda Palache (1858–1927), American mineralogist Charles Palache (1869–1954), and Dutch linguist Juda Lion Palache (1886–1944).
History[edit]
Inquisitions and expulsions[edit]
According to historians Mercedes García-Arenal and Gerard Wiegers, “Les Pallache étaient une famille de juifs d’origine hispanique installés à Fès depuis l’expulsion des juifs d’Espagne en 1492.” (“The Pallaches were a family of Hispanic Jews who settled in Fez after the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.”)[1]
In 1480, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon established a Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition (Spanish: Tribunal del Santo Oficio de la Inquisición), commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition (Inquisición española). Its dual purpose was to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in Spain while replacing the Medieval Inquisition under papal control. On March 31, 1492, Isabella and Ferdinand issued the Alhambra Decree (or “Edict of Expulsion”), thereby ordering the expulsion of practicing Jews from the Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, its territories, and it possessions by July 31 that year–in four months.[7] Jews who had converted to Christianity (“conversos“) were safe from expulsion. Some 200,000 Jews converted; between 40,000 and 100,000 fled from the kingdom.[8] (On December 16, 1968, Spain revoked the Alhambra Edict.[9] On June 25, 2015, King Felipe VI of Spain announced Law Number 12/2015, which grants right of return to Sephardic Jews.[10][11][12] There are criticisms about shortcomings in the law.[13] By October 2016, Spain had processed more than 4,500 applicants, of which only three had gained citizenship based on the actual law: the rest (number unstated) were naturalized by royal decree.”[14])
On December 5, 1496, King ManueI of Portugal decreed that all Jews must convert to Catholicism or leave the country. Jews who converted to Christianity were known as New Christians. This initial edict of expulsion turned into an edict of forced conversion by 1497. In 1506, the Lisbon Massacre erupted. In 1535, Portugal launched its own inquisition. Portuguese Jews fled to the Ottoman Empire (notably Thessaloniki and Istanbul and to Morocco. Some went to Amsterdam, France, Brazil, Curaçao, and the Antilles. Some of the most famous descendants of Portuguese Jews who lived outside Portugal are the philosopher Baruch Spinoza (from Portuguese Bento de Espinosa), and the classical economist David Ricardo. While Portugal was under control of the Philippine Dynasty of the House of Habsburg (1581–1640), the Portuguese Inquisition blended with the Spanish.
The combined Spanish-Portuguese inquisitions caused one of the largest diasporas in Jewish history.
Iberia[edit]
(Research is currently underway to connect the Pallache more clearly back from Morocco to the Iberian Peninsula and probable ancestor, Samuel ben Meir Ha-Levi Abulafia / Samuel ha-Levi (ca. 1320–1360) of Cordoba, Andalusia, which would make the Pallache family a branch of the Abulafia family.)
According to Professor Mercedes García-Arenal,[15] 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 Córdoba‘”.[2]
According to Professor Reginald Aldworth Daly, the Pallaches were “persecuted Sephardim Jews of Portugal who were exiled to Holland”.[16]
According to Professor Giovanna Fiume,[17] “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.” (translation: “The Pallache family also emigrated to the Netherlands, perhaps from Portugal or Spain, or, second, another hypothesizes, they emigrated [directly] from…