Manoel Dias Soeiro ;, better known by his Hebrew name Menasseh ben Israel or Menashe ben Israel, also known as Menasheh ben Yossef ben Yisrael, also known with the Hebrew acronym, MB"Y or MBI, was a Jewish scholar, rabbi, kabbalist, writer, diplomat, printer, publisher, and founder of the first Hebrew printing press in Amsterdam in 1626.
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 Amstelveen. It is connected to Amsterdam by the river Amstel. There is another village called Ouderkerk in South Holland, Ouderkerk aan den IJssel.
The community of Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands, particularly in Amsterdam, was of major importance in the seventeenth century. The Portuguese Jews in the Netherlands did not refer to themselves as "Sephardim", but rather as "Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation." The Portuguese-speaking community grew from conversos, Jews forced to convert to Catholicism in Spain and Portugal, who rejudaized under rabbinic authority, to create an openly self-identified Portuguese Jewish community. As a result of the expulsions from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1496, as well as the religious persecution by the Inquisition that followed, many Spanish and Portuguese Jews left the Iberian peninsula at the end of the 15th century and throughout the 16th century, in search of religious freedom. Some migrated to the newly independent Dutch provinces which allowed Jews to become residents. Many Jews who left for the Dutch provinces were crypto-Jews, but continued to practice Judaism in secret. Others had been sincere New Christians, who, despite their conversion, were targeted by Old Christians as suspect. Some of these sought to return to the religion of their ancestors. Ashkenazi Jews began migrating to the Netherlands in the mid seventeenth century, but Portuguese Jews viewed them with ambivalence.
The Portugees-Israëlitisch Kerkgenootschap (PIK) is the community for Sephardic Jews in the Netherlands. Sephardic Jews have been living in the Netherlands since the 16th century with the forced relocation of Spanish but above all Portuguese Jews Jews from their home countries due to the Inquisition. Some 270 families are connected to the PIK, also sometimes called PIG,.
Haim Palachi was a Jewish-Turkish chief rabbi of Smyrna (İzmir) and author in Ladino and Hebrew. His titles included Hakham Bashi and Gaon. He was the father of grand rabbis Abraham Palacci and Isaac Palacci and rabbi Joseph Palacci. He was a member of the Pallache family.
Samuel Pallache was a Jewish Moroccan merchant, diplomat, and pirate of the Pallache family, who, as envoy, concluded a treaty with the Dutch Republic in 1608. His antecedents fled to Morocco during the Reconquista. Appointed as an agent under the Saadi Sultan Zidan Abu Maali, Pallache traveled to the newly-independent Dutch Republic to discuss diplomatic terms with the Dutch against their mutual enemy, the Spanish. He died in the Netherlands, brought there due to the intervention of his ally, Maurice of Nassau, who helped him when he was arrested by the Spanish.
Jacob Tirado was one of the founders of the Spanish-Portuguese community of Amsterdam.
The Jewish Cemetery is an oil-on-canvas painting by the Dutch landscape painter Jacob van Ruisdael, now at the Detroit Institute of Arts.
Elijah Montalto was a Marrano physician and polemicist from Paris who became the personal physician of Maria de Medici.
David ben Joseph Pardo was a Dutch rabbi and hakham. He was born in Salonica to Rabbi Joseph and Reina in the second half of the sixteenth century. He went with his father to Amsterdam, where he became hakham of the Bet Yisrael congregation. This congregation was consolidated in 1639 with the other two congregations in Amsterdam, and Pardo was appointed hakham together with Isaac Aboab da Fonseca, Menasseh Ben Israel, and Saul Levi Morteira. He was also a trustee of the Jewish cemetery and hazzan of the Bikkur Holim organization. In 1625 he founded the Honen Dallim benevolent society.
Joseph Pardo was an English hazzan. He appears to have gone to London from Amsterdam, where his father, David, was a rabbi. He wrote "Shulhan Tahor," a compendium of the first two parts of Joseph Caro's Shulhan 'Aruk, which was edited by his son, David, and printed at Amsterdam in 1686, dedicated to the "Kaal Kados De Londres", but with an approbation from the bet din of Amsterdam. The book has been reprinted several times: Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1696, and, with notes by Moses Isserles, 1713; and Frankfort-on-the-Oder, 1704.
Joseph Pardo was an Italian rabbi and merchant. He was born in Thessaloniki, but went to Venice before 1589, where he served as rabbi to the Levantine community and also engaged in business. Later, he emigrated to the Netherlands and was appointed Hakham of the Bet Ya'akob congregation in Amsterdam founded by Jacob Tirado, holding office from 1597 until his death.
(Previously, this page expanded into a family history–now in separate entry: q.v. "Pallache family.")
Abraham Palacci was a grand rabbi and author of Ottoman Smyrna which is now Izmir. He was the son of grand rabbi Haim Palachi and brother of grand rabbi Rahamim Nissim Palacci and rabbi Joseph Palacci. He came from the influential Pallache family.
"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.
Juda Lion Palache was a professor of Semitic languages at the University of Amsterdam and a leader of the Portuguese Jewish community in that city. He came from the Pallache family.
Joseph Pallache, 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.
David Pallache (1598–1650) was born in Fez, Morocco, one of five sons of Joseph Pallache and nephews of Samuel Pallache. He came from the Sephardic Pallache family.
Isaac Juda Palache was grand rabbi of the Portuguese Sephardic community of Amsterdam from 1900 to 1926 and a member of the Pallache family.
Solomon de Oliveyra was a Dutch rabbi, poet, and philologist. He has been described as the "preeminent and omnipresent Hebrew poet of Jewish Amsterdam" in the late seventeenth century.
