Centennial College professor Dr. Joseph B. Glass and Israeli-born co-author and Hebrew University of Jerusalem professor Ruth Kark are sharing a $10,000 international award for their original research and book on the development of banking in Palestine. It is the first time a Canadian has won the prestigious award from the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre. In their book, Sephardi Entrepreneurs in Jerusalem: The Valero Family 1800-1948 (Gefen Publishing), authors Glass and Kark present readers with a fascinating look at one of Jerusalem's founding families, the Valeros, who were responsible for establishing the first private bank in Israel. The book is a cultural study of the life of a family from the higher echelons of Jerusalem in the 19th the first half of the 20th centuries, a rare glimpse at the day-to-day lives of Jews living in Ottoman-ruled Palestine, as well as a look at entrepreneurship in the Middle East. Dr. Glass teaches Canadian studies, geography and tourism in the General Education department at Centennial. He received his doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he met professor Kark 20 years ago. He has since written five books and numerous articles that deal with wide-ranging topics including issues in immigration, settlement, urban development, cultural studies and historical-geography in Canada, the U.S., Israel and the Middle East. The prize is awarded to winners of the Best Monograph in the Competition for Research on the History of Banking and Finance, by the Ottoman Bank Archives and Research Centre, the European Association for Banking and Financial History, and the History Foundation of Turkey. The competition aims to promote academic research on Turkish banking, finance, and economic history, from Ottoman times to the present, and to establish a tradition in this field. Dr. Glass was able to fly to Istanbul last December to collect his prize in person. He is currently working on a book about Canada and the Holy Land. | 
