Haim Aharon Valero (1845–1923) was a banker, entrepreneur and a prominent figure in the Jewish community of 19th century Jerusalem. Under his direction, the Valero Bank, founded in 1848 by his father Jacob, acted as catalyst in the development of the Jewish community under Ottoman rule. The bank's capital and financial services were employed in the acquisition of land and building, helping transform Jerusalem and nearby townships from stagnation and poverty towards the modernization of the 20th century. Biography Haim Aharon Valero was born in Jerusalem in 1845. He benefitted from a broader education, including five languages: French, Turkish, Arabic, Hebrew and Ladino (the language spoken by the Jews of Spain). At the age of fifteen he started working as clerk in the bank run by his father and by 1875 became the manager of the Jerusalem branch. By this time the bank had no other partners. In 1880, after the death of his older brother Joseph, he became director of the bank. Valero married Simha Papu and had seven children with her. After she died at the age of 38, he married his niece, Miriam Valero, and had two more children. He died in 1923 and was buried at the Mount of Olives cemetery. Haim Aharon's father, Jacob Valero (1813–1874), was of Spanish-Jewish origins (Sephardic), whose ancestors were forced out of Spain by the Spanish Inquisition in the late 15th century. His family migrated to the Ottoman Empire and Jacob was born in Istanbul. He received a traditional Jewish education and as a young man (in the early 1830s) migrated to Ottoman Syria and settled in Jerusalem. Jacob Valero married Esther Aziza Levi and had three children. Initially he worked as a butcher, but after a while switched to money changing, which went from strength to strength. In collaboration with Haim Amzalak (another Sephardic Jew), Gavriel (some say Yehuda) Papu and Jacob (Giacomo) Pascal (an Armenian in the employ of the Austrian consulate - a ‘silent’ partner), he founded in 1848 the first bank in Palestine, named Jacob Valero & Co. The main branch was located in the Old City close to the Jaffa Gate, in a small two room flat. With the expansion of its operations, a branch was opened in the port of Jaffa, directed by his eldest son Joseph (1837–1879) and the bank also had representation (possibly another branch) in Damascus. Valero Bank The early operations