PARDO

PARDO, family which apparently originated in Prado del Rey, Castile, and which flourished during the 16th–18th centuries in the Ottoman Empire, Italy, the Netherlands, England, and America. The more celebrated members of the family are dealt with under separate entries. DAVID (d. 1657), the son of joseph pardo , served as rabbi in Amsterdam. He was born in Salonika and moved to Amsterdam with his father. In 1618 he was appointed rabbi of the Beth Israel congregations. After the three Sephardi congregations had amalgamated into the Talmud Torah congregation (1639), he was appointed one of its four rabbis and trustee of the cemetery. He published an edition in Latin characters of Ẓaddik b. Joseph Formon's Ladino translation of Ḥovot ha-Levavot by Baḥya ibn Paquda (Amsterdam, 1610). His son, Josiah, was a disciple and son-in-law of Saul levi morteira . After teaching in the Yesiba de los Pintos of Rotterdam, which was transferred to Amsterdam in 1669, he emigrated to Curaçao (Antilles). From 1674 he was ḥakham of the community there and appears to have founded the local yeshivah, Eẓ Ḥayyim ve-Ohel Ya'akov. In 1683 he left for Jamaica, where he also served as rabbi. David Pardo (d. c. 1717), the rabbi of the Portuguese community of Surinam, was probably his son. The Pardo family was scattered throughout North America, where they became known as Brown (or Browne; although the actual meaning of Pardo is "grey"). Saul Pardo (d. 1708), known as Saul Brown, was the first ḥazzan of the Jewish community of New York. He held this office in the She'erit Israel synagogue until 1682. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kayserling, Bibl, index; L. Blau, Leo Modenas Briefe und Schriftstuecke (1907), 79ff.; J. Mendes dos Remedios, Os Judeus Portuguesesem Amsterdam (1911), 9, 13, 16, 41; J.S. da Silva Rosa, Geschiedenis der Portugeesche Joden te Amsterdam (1925), index; C. Roth, A Life of Menasseh. Ben Israel (1934), index; H.I. Bloom, The Economic Activities of Jews of Amsterdam (1937), index; Brugmans-Frank, 211ff.; H.B. Grinstein, The Rise of the Jewish Community of New York (1945), 484, 488; J.R. Marcus, Early American Jewry, 1 (1951), 35, and index s.v. Brown; Wiznitzer, in: HJ, 20 (1958), 110f., 117f.; Emmanuel, in: AJHSP, 44 (1954–55), 216f., 221, 225 n.; Hershkowitz, ibid., 55 (1965–66), 324ff. and index s.v. Brown, Browne.