Samuel Pallache Dies

Samuel Pallache, a Jewish merchant from Fez, died in The Hague in early February 1616. He had served as an agent of Sultan Zidan Abu Maali and helped negotiate the Dutch–Moroccan treaty of friendship and commerce concluded on 24 December 1610. After a later arrest in England on a Spanish piracy complaint, Dutch intercession secured his release. The Jewish Encyclopedia records that he died at The Hague in 1616 and that Prince Maurice of Orange attended the funeral. It does not give a February day.

The Portuguese Jewish cemetery index at Beth Haim, Ouderkerk aan de Amstel, lists Palache, Samuel, card 19256, with burial date 4 February 1616, plot A-13-174. That civil date is a burial-register entry, not an independent death notice. Hebcal converts 16 Shevat 5376 to 4 February 1616 and 17 Shevat 5376 to Friday, 5 February 1616. A published reading of the tombstone says he was “summoned” on Friday, 17 Shevat 5376. The Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek gives 4 February in its opening line, then 5 February as the death date and 9 February as the burial.

The death day is therefore not established. Holland had already adopted the Gregorian calendar.