Valero family land outside Damascus Gate

By some accounts, the Valero family arrived in Jerusalem in the 18th or 19th centuries from Turkey.

By LENNY BEN-DAVID
Valeros' shops (photo credit: Lenny ben-david / Library of Congress)
Valeros' shops
(photo credit: Lenny ben-david / Library of Congress)
By some accounts, the Valero family arrived in Jerusalem in the 18th or 19th centuries from Turkey. Researchers have even suggested that the family were once conversos – secret Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity in Spain.
They later traveled to Turkey and returned to their Jewish faith.
In Jerusalem, the family took up residence in the Old City. According to a monograph by the Hebrew University’s Prof. Ruth Kark and Joseph Glass, Ya’acov Valero arrived in Jerusalem in 1835 from Constantinople (now Istanbul). Originally a ritual slaughterer, Valero opened a private bank – the first in Palestine – in 1848, located inside the Jaffa Gate in the Old City. When he died in 1874, the banking and real-estate enterprise was taken over by his son Haim Aharon.
Among the Valeros’ land holdings were tracts outside of the Old City on Jaffa Road, the area that eventually became the Mahaneh Yehuda market, the grounds of the Bikur Cholim Hospital, and several hectares around Damascus Gate, a hub of commerce in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Prior to World War I Haim Aharon built and leased stores at the entrance of Damascus Gate, pictured here.
In the 1930s, the British authorities ruled that the area should be zoned for use as “open spaces” and they demolished the shops in 1937. The Valeros were not compensated. • For more photos see www.israeldailypicture.com