Pallache family
"Pallache" – also de Palacio, Palache, Palaçi, Palachi, Palacci, Palaggi, and many other variations – 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.
The Pallache have had connections with both Portuguese and Spanish Sephardic communities, as detailed below.
The Pallache established themselves in cities in Portugal, 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 and Joseph Pallache, at least three grand rabbis of Izmir – Gaon. Haim Palachi, his sons Abraham Palacci and Rahamim Nissim Palacci, grand rabbi of Amsterdam Isaac Juda Palache, American mineralogist Charles Palache, and Dutch linguist Juda Lion Palache.
History
Inquisitions and expulsions
In 1480, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon established a Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition, commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition. 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, 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. Jews who had converted to Christianity were safe from expulsion. Some 200,000 Jews converted; between 40,000 and 100,000 fled from the kingdom. had gained citizenship based on the actual law: the restOn 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, and the classical economist David Ricardo. While Portugal was under control of the Philippine Dynasty of the House of Habsburg, the Portuguese Inquisition blended with the Spanish.
The combined Spanish-Portuguese inquisitions caused one of the largest diasporas in Jewish history.
Iberia
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 Córdoba'."According to Professor Reginald Aldworth Daly, the Pallaches were "persecuted Sephardim Jews of Portugal who were exiled to Holland."
According to Professor Giovanna Fiume, "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."
José Maria Abecassis cites historian Abraham ibn Daud of Toledo, who wrote:
Segundo o historiador Abraham Ben Daud a família Pallache já era célebre em Córdova no séc. 10. Após a expulsão de Espanha em 1492 foi para Marrocos, donde posteriormente se ramificou na Holanda, Turquia, Palestina e em Gibraltar.
Outras grafias: Palatio, Pallacío, Payachia.
Membros desta familia prestaram serviços eminentes a Marrocos no séc. 17. Distinguiram-se como embaixadores ou enviados dos sultões na Europa, especialmente na Holanda. Estabeleceram relações diplomáticas e criaram importantes trocas comerciais com o seu país.
Os Palaçano viviam em Portugal antes da Expulsão.
According to the historian Abraham Ben Daud the Pallache family was already famous in Cordoba in the 10th century. After expulsion from Spain in 1492, they went to Morocco, where later they branched out to Holland, Turkey, Palestine, and Gibraltar.
Other spellings: Palatio, Pallacío, Payachia.
Members of this family provided eminent services to Morocco in the 17th century. They distinguished themselves as ambassadors or envoys of the Sultans in Europe, especially in Holland. They established diplomatic relations and created important trade with their country.
The Palaçano lived in Portugal before the Expulsion.
Portugal
At present, it is unclear as to whether members of the Pallache family went first to Portugal after Spain. However, new findings show that their intermarriage started earlier than supposed in A Man in Three Worlds.Morocco
Jewish presence in Morocco goes back to Carthage, fared moderately, and often prospered under Muslim rule. From Morocco, they filtered into Al-Andalus but began to return during the Spanish Reconquista, which mounted in the 10th Century. The Spanish-Portuguese expulsions and inquisitions sent floods of Jews back to Morocco on a larger scale. Resultant overcrowding in Moroccan cities led to tension, fires, and famines in Jewish quarters.Moïse Al Palas , born in Marrakesh, was a rabbi who moved to Tetuán and lived for a time in Salonica, then in the Ottoman Empire. Before dying in Venice, he published Va-Yakhel Moshe and Ho'il Moshe, and an autobiography.
Isaac Pallache was a rabbi in Fez, Morocco, first mentioned in takkanot in 1588. His sons were Samuel Pallache and Joseph Pallache. Isaac was married to a sister of Fez's grand rabbi, Judah Uziel; his nephew Isaac Uziel became a rabbi of the Neve Shalom community in Amsterdam.
Netherlands
Jews began to settle in the Netherlands only at the end of the 16th Century. Thanks to its own recent independence from Spanish control, the Dutch Republic attracted Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands as a refuge from a common enemy, Spain.After an unsuccessful attempt to return to Spain in the mid-1600s, Samuel and Joseph Pallache settled a new branch of the Pallache family in the Netherlands by 1608. There, they represented their benefactor, Zidan al-Nasir of Morocco, as well as the Dutch government, in complex negotiations with Morocco, the Netherlands, Spain, France, England, the Ottoman Empire, and other European states – often on behalf of more than one sponsoring state and on their own behalf.
The sons of both brothers continued in their fathers's footsteps, some remaining in the Netherlands, others returning to Morocco.
In the Netherlands, the surname solidified as "Palache", and the family continues as Palache in the Netherlands to the present. In recent times, prominent members have included grand rabbi Isaac Juda Palache and his son, Professor Juda Lion Palache.
A Man in Three Worlds did not find intermarriage between the Pallache brothers or sons and members of the Portuguese Sephardic community in the Netherlands. In fact, it documents the contrary, e.g., that sons Isaac and Joshuae did not go make such marriages. "It seems significant that no male member of the Pallache family ever married a woman from the Portuguese community... it is surely significant that neither Samuel nor any of his heirs were ever to marry into the great trading families of 'the Portuguese nation'." In September 2016, however, two 1643 marriage certificates were discovered for David Pallache and Judith Lindo of Antwerp, daughter of Ester Lindo Death details for David Pallache also confirm the marriage. Further, three years later, in 1646, Samuel Pallache, son of Isaac Joseph Pallache and nephew of David Joseph Pallache, married Abigail, sister of Judith Lindo.
Turkey
have lived in Asia Minor since the 5th Century BCE. The Ottoman Empire welcomed Sephardic Jews expelled from the Iberian Peninsula.The first reported Pallache in Turkey dates to 1695, when Isaac Pallache of Leghorn wrote a letter to the Dutch consul in Smyrna Currently, it is unknown whether the Pallache settled first in Istanbul or Izmir.
The Pallache appear in Izmir no later than the time of rabbi Jacob Pallache, who married the daughter of a previous grand rabbi Joseph Raphael ben Hayyim Hazzan. Jacob's son became grand rabbi Haim Palachi, two of whose sons, Abraham and Isaac aka Rahamim Nissim also became grand rabbis there.
According to the Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World:
The Pallache... produced several leading rabbinical scholars in the Ottoman city of Izmir during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two of them, Hayyim ben Jacob and his sone Abraham, served as chief rabbi and became the focus of a fierce dispute that engulfed the town's Jewish community, while a third, Soloman ben Abraham, contributed to its decline.
The Pallache continued in Turkey past the 1922 great fire of Smyrna; some left during Allied evacuation during World War II and died during the Holocaust.
Egypt
The Torah documents a long history of Jews in Egypt. Jews lived quietly under the Romans until the advent of Christianity. After the Arab conquest, Jews survived reasonably well under the Tulunids, the Fatimids, and the Ayyubids during whose rule Maimonides lived. Under the Bahri Mamluks, Jews began to feel less secure and less so under the Burji Mamluks. The Ottomans took more active interest in the Jewish community and made substantial changes in their governance. Shabbatai Zvi visited Cairo, where his movement continued under Abraham Miguel Cardozo, physician to the pasha Kara Mohammed. Following the Damascus Affair, Moses Montefiore, Adolphe Crémieux, and Salomon Munk visited Egypt in 1840 and helped found schools with Rabbi Moses Joseph Algazi.It was a period of rapid change in Egypt. As of 1867, the government began changing from pasha to khedive, to sultan and threw off Ottoman suzerainty. It also saw the building of the Suez Canal. Political unrest exploded after World War I, led by Saad Zaghlul and the Wafd Party) and culminating in the Egyptian revolution of 1919 and the issue by the UK government of a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence on February 22, 1922.. The new Egyptian government drafted and implemented a constitution in 1923 based on a parliamentary system. In 1924, Zaghlul became Prime Minister of Egypt. In 1936, Egypt concluded a new treaty with the UK. In 1952, the 1952 Revolution of the Free Officers Movement forced King Farouk to abdicate in support of his son Fuad, secured a British promise of withdrawal by 1954–1956, and led to the accession of Egypt's first modern president Gamal Abdel-Nasser.
No later than the close of the 19th Century, a branch of the Pallache family had settled in Egypt, with some remaining in Cairo into the 1950s.
Which members of the family had what foreign citizenship is as yet undetermined, e.g., Spanish under the Decree-Law of 29 December 1948 to extend Spanish protection for Sephardic Jews in Greece and Egypt:
DECRETO-LEY de 29 de diciembre de 1948 por el que se reconoce la condición de súbditos españoles en 1. extranjero a determinados sefardies protegidos de España: Por Canje de Notas efectuado por España con Egipto el dieciséis y diecisiete de enero de mil novecientos treinta y cinco, y con Grecia el siete de abril de mil novecientos treinta y seis, se convino que España continuarla otorgando su patrocinio y documentando, en consecuencia, a una serie de familias sefardies que, desde tiempos del imperIo ottoman, gozaban en aquellos territorios de tal gracia; y a dicho efecto, y como anejo a las referidas Notas, se establecireron unas listas, cuidadosamente seleccionadas, de esos beneficiarios, cuya futura condición de súbditos españoles se preveía en aquellas Notas...
Palacci department store
In 1897, Palacci brothers Vita, Henri, and family established the "Palacci" department store. In 1904, the company's name was "Palacci Menasce et Fils". Shortly thereafter, it had become "Palacci Fils, Haim et Cie", located on Muski street near the old Opera House. By 1907, Vita Palacci had become head of the store. Also in 1907, the Jewish Chronicle of London mentions "Mr. Vita Pallacci, the distinguished chief of the house of Palacci Pils, Halm and Co., which is well known inEurope and America." By 1909, the Palacci had partnered with A. Hayam, and the store employed 20 office clerks and more than 100–120 sales staff. In 1910, "Albert Palacci & Co." appears as a Cairo firm interested in trading in silk. At an unclear date, "Palacci, Menasce & Co." are recorded as having stores in Cairo, Tanta, and Mansoura.In 1916, "Palacci, Fils, Haym, and Co." were listed among "persons who have been granted licenses to trade in Egypt, with the British Empire, and with Allies of Great Britain." The same year, "Palacci Fil, Haim & Co." filed a suit against "Mohamed Moh. Sélim."
As community leaders, the Palacci supported Jewish causes inside and outside Egypt. In 1907, Vita Palacci was serving as president of la société de bienfaisence a "Hachemia":
En 1901, fut fondée au Caire une société de bienfaisance israélite dénommée "Hachemia." Cette institution qui est l'oeuvre exclusive des israélites de Turquie résidant en Egypte, prend de jour en jour un développement sensible. Pendant le dernier exercice, Hachemia a donne des soins médicaux à 1.000 malades furent visites à raison d'une piastre par visite, sans compter les malades seignés à son compete dans divers hôpitaux du Caire et d'Alexandrie...During 1916–1917, "Palacci Fils, Haym & Co." was one of numerous donors in Egypt to the "Yeshibat Erez Israel for the Refugee Rabbis from the Holy Land, established by the Alexandrian Rabbinate." From 1 Eyar 5676 through Sivan 5677, this group collected 120,427.5 PT, routed to its treasurer, E. Anzurat and published its third financial report. Donors were from Alexandria, Cairo, "suburbs," England, Australia, Canada, S. Africa, India, France, and the USA. The local collector in Cairo was Rabbi Haim Mendelof. The Palacci donated 500 PT, as did Maurice Calamari, I.M. Cattaui & Fils, Le Fils de M. Cicurel, Jaques & Elie Green.
L'année dernière, le baron Edmond de Rothschild, lors de son dernier séjour au Cairo, fit a cette société un don de 3.000 fr. En 2901 Mme la baronne de Rothschild lue fil un don pareil.
Le comité directeur de la Hachemia est composé de personnalités marquantes de Caire. M. Vita Palacci, le distingué chef de l'importante maison du commerce Palacci fils, Haim et Cie, qui est bien connue en Egypte et au Soudain, en est le president actif et dévoué. Parmi ses collaborateurs, citons de Dr. Beneroya, le directeur du journal "La Vara"; M. Talvi, ingénieur au ministère des Travaux publies, etc.; Dr. Amster, médecin a l'administration des services sanitaire; et Dr. Isaac J. Levy d'Alexandrie, médecin de la communauté de l'hôpital Menascé, de la ligue contra la tuberculose et de la Municipalite de cette ville. Ces deux derniers étant membres honoraires théoriquement, actifs, pratiquement.
In 1901, a Jewish mutual aid society was founded in Cairo called the "Hachemia." This institution, which is a charitable organization for Turkish Jews residing in Egypt, is making positive advances. Since the last fiscal year, Hachemia has provided medical care to a thousand visiting patients at the rate of one piaster per visit, not including patients cared for and covered by Hachemia in several hospitals in Cairo and Alexandria...
Last year, Baron Edmond de Rothschild, during his last visit to Cairo, donated 3,000 francs. In 1901, Baroness de Rothschild made a gift in the same amount.
The committee leadership of Hachemia is composed of prominent people of Cairo. Mr. Vita Palacci, the distinguished head of the major commercial house Palacci Sons, Haim and Co., well known in Egypt and in Sudan, is the current and committed president of Hachemia. Among the other members of the leadership are: Dr. Beneroya, the editor of the newspaper "La Vara"; Mr. Talvi, an engineer at the Ministry of Public Works, etc.; Dr. Amster, doctor administering health services; and Dr. Isaac J. Levy of Alexandria, doctor at the Jewish Community Menascé Hospital, of Anti-Tuberculosis League, and the Alexandria Municipality. The latter two are honorary members theoretically, actively, and practically.
When Vita died in 1917, his oldest son Albert Vita Palacci succeeded as manager. The store had offices overseas in Paris to purchase draperies and hardware, while its Cairo offices exported household essentials and perfumes. By the mid-1920s, Palacci had branches on Fuad Street and in Heliopolis.
In 1925, the Palacci partook in a "Gran Corso Carnivalesque" in Cairo, organized by the International Union of Commercial Establishment Employees of Cairo, along with 24 other grand department stores, including: Cicurel, Bon Marché, Mawardi, Salamander, and Paul Favre. Other department stores of that time included: Chemla Fréres, Orosdi-Back, Sednaoui, Hannaux, Chalons, Ades, Gattegno, Madkur, Ahmad, Yusuf Gamal, Benzion, Morum's, Stein's, Raff's, Robert Hughes, Mayer, Tiring. The history Maadi: 1904-1962 lists the following Jewish families around the Adly synagogu including: Rasson, Romano, Gold, Kabili, Rofe, Mizrahi, Chalem, Calderon, Agami, setton, Simhon, Sofeir. It also lists those Jewish families close by, including: Harris, Risolevi, Hettena, Sullam, Ades, Watoury, Palacci, Curiel, Basri, Farhi, Hazan, and Hazan. The history Egypt: The Lost Homeland lists the following Jewish families in Cairo who "were considered Austrian and enjoyed the protection of the Austrian embassy, event though they were not Austrian citizens": Adda, Benarojo, Belilios, Cattaui, Forte, Goldstein, Heffez, Ismalun, Mondolfo, Pallaci, Picciotto, Rossano, and Romano.
In 1933, the family of Mahmoud Abel Bak El Bitar had a lawsuit against "Pallaci, Haym & Co." By 1935, the Palacci department store had experienced financial difficulties and then burned down; the family did not rebuild. Nevertheless, the family company or derivatives continued. In 1947, an "H.M. Palacci & Co." appears as an agent of the G. R. Marshall & Co. exporting company of Richmond, Canada.
The 1948 Cairo bombings, which included the Ades and Gattegno stores, did not deter the family; both Albert Vita Palacci and Dr. Victor Palacci appear in a 1955 Who's Who for Egypt, while Henry Menahem Palacci in Cairo appears in the mid-1950s. By the time Nasser had nationalized all Jewish-owned assets in Egypt, most Palacci had left Cairo in diaspora–yet "Palacci Fils, Hayem et Cie." remained listed as a business in Cairo as late as 1959.
Cairo residences
The Pallache family settled around the main home of Vita Palacci, a villa at No. 23 Ahmed Basha Street in Garden City, Cairo. Two of Vita Palacci's grandchildren, siblings Eddy and Colette, have written memoirs of their childhoods in Cairo, which document Sephardic Jewish life in Cairo in the 1930s, including traditions, use of Ladino, and food recipes.Alexandria
Pallache also settled in Alexandria. "Mordahai Palacci-Miram was likewise a Sephardi but from Constantinople, when he married Rosa Alterman, an Ashkenazi of German origin. Several of their children were born in Constantinople... but to escape an outbreak of plague came to Alexandria..." A "Ventura Palacci-Miram" is also mentioned.Congo venture: La Coupole
After World War I, participation of the Force Publique in the East African campaign resulted in a League of Nations mandate over the previously German colony of Ruanda-Urundi to Belgium as Belgian Congo.In the mid-1940s, Henri Palacci, son of Menahem, son of Aaron Palacci, founded "La Coupole" store in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, as documented here:
Les commerçants juifs ont contribué à l'émancipation des "indigènes," en les initiant aux produits manufacturés. Ainsi, les boutiques "Au Chic" du Groupe Hasson et "La Coupole" d’Henri Palacci, ouverts, à Léopoldville, vers 1946, vendent à tous et refusent toute forme de discrimination raciale. Leurs rapports quotidiens avec les colonisés distinguaient les Juifs des autres Blancs. Et lors des évènements tragiques de 1960, aucun Juif ne fut molesté par la foule en colère.
Jewish merchants contributed to the empowerment of "indigenous" people by introducing them to manufactured goods. The shops "Au Chic" and "La Coupole", opened in Leopoldville, around 1946, selling to all and refusing any form of racial discrimination. Daily contact with colonized Jews differed from other Whites. And during the tragic events of 1960, no Jew was molested by mobs.
Other countries
The Pallache had established themselves in Jamaica by the 19th Century in the sugar trade. In 1825, the London Gazette posted notice of a partnership that included Mordecai Palache and Alexander Palache "of Kingston, in the Island of Jamaica." A "Charles, son of Mordechai Palache" is recorded in 1847. Numerous people named Palache continued to appear. Most prominent among them was the Honorable John Thomson Palache.A "Vita Palacci" appears in Argentina by 1855.
21st Century
Continued expulsions and diaspora have dispersed the Pallache family to many countries in the Americas, Europe, and farther afield.By the 20th Century, the Pallache had established and the United States. The family of noted American mineralogist Charles Palache came to California from Jamaica. His descendants include Judith Palache Gregory, AKA "an American writer, counselor, educator, and permaculturalist
Numerous Palacci came to the States in diaspora from Turkey and Egypt, including Colette Rossant.
Synagogues
Netherlands
Samuel Pallache may have helped found the first synagogue in Amsterdam. As early as his 1769 Memorias do Estabelecimento e Progresso dos Judeos Portuguezes e Espanhoes nesta Famosa Cidade de Amsterdam, David Franco Mendes records a first minyan in Amsterdam with sixteen worshippers, including Samuel and Joseph Pallache. Other sources go further to claim that this first minyan occurred in Palache's home, as they were dignitaries and occurred around 1590 or Yom Kippur 1596. However, in their book A Man of Three Worlds' on Samuel Pallache, Professors García-Arenal and Gerard A. Wiegers point out that the Pallache brothers arrived in Amsterdam in the first decade of the following century.Turkey
Around 1840, the Pallache home in Smyrna became today's Beth Hillel Synagogue and seat of a yeshiva or beit madras. The synagogue lies in the Kemeraltı marketplace district in Izmir and is named after Haim or Abraham Palacci. Professor Stanford J. Shaw stated it was Haim who founded the Beth Hillel Palacci. or his son Abraham. According to Jewish Izmir Heritage, "In the 19th century, Rabbi Avraham Palache founded in his home a synagogue named Beit Hillel, after the philanthropist from Bucharest who supported the publication of Rabbi Palache's books. However, the name 'Avraham Palache Synagogue' was also used by the community." This synagogue forms a cluster of eight extant, all adjacent... Izmir is the only city in the world in which an unusual cluster of synagogues bearing a typical medieval Spanish architectural style is preserved... creating an historical architectural complex unique in the world." The Zalman Shazar Center also refers to Beit Hillel synagogue as "Avraham Palaggi's synagogue" but then states that "the synagogue was founded by Palaggi Family in 1840" and that Rav Avraham Palaggi "used" it. "The building had been used as a synagogue and a Beit Midrash. The synagogue has not been used since 1960's." It concludes, "The synagogue was founded by the Palaggi family and is therefore very important."Egypt
The Palaccis were one of many families that helped maintain the Sephardic Sha'ar Hashamayim Synagogue on Adly Street in downtown Cairo.Yeshivas
Turkey
Journey into Jewish Heritage states that Haim Palacci founded the Beit Hillel Yeshiva in Izmir in the middle of the 19th century. Current sources are unclear, but it is likely the same as the Beit Midrash mentioned above.Israel
A seminary was named in Haim Palachi's honor in Bnei Brak, Israel.Writings
- Haim Palachi – of 82 publications, 36 are listed under: Haim Palachi
- Many other rabbinical works by other Palache rabbis, including: Abraham Palacci, Rahamim Nissim Palacci, and Joseph Palacci
- Colette Rossant: Apricots on the Nile
- Eddy Palacci: Des étoiles par cœur
Documented spellings of surname
Variations on the Pallache name appear on both Spanish and Portuguese lists of Sephardic names. For instance, "Palacci" is listed as Spanish Sephardic, while "Pallache" is listed as Portuguese Sephardic.
Samuel Pallache's name appeared in several forms–including variations that he himself used. A German Vierteljarhschrift mentions both "Duarte de Palacios" and "Duarte Palache" when referring to the same person, thus making direct equation between the names "de Palacios" and "Palache."
Documented names include:
- Pallache'
- Palache
- Palacio
- Palatio
- Palachio
- Palazzo."
- de Palatio
- al-Palas
- Pallas
- Palaggi
- Balyash
- Palacci
- Palate,
- Palatie,
- Paliache
- Palachi as in "Haim Palachi" or "Hayim Palachi"
- Paligi
- Palagi
- Palatchi
- Bene Palyāj
- Palachy
- Palaci
- Payache
- Payaxe
- Payachia
- Pallachi
- Pelache
Family tree