Page 175 - ISRAEL'S CRADLE

Leib Yaffe, Director-General of Keren Hayesod, was the most senior casualty
The two left the compound and after several minutes, Daud left the car and said he would return soon and never returned. In the meantime, the guards suspected the vehicle, and one of them left the courtyard, turned around and returned. According to Milstein, he placed the car beneath the office of the Chairman of the Executive David Ben-Gurion, who had been absent from the building due to his security activity in Tel Aviv. And then the explosion occurred.
Yet one fact is indisputable. That several minutes after Daud left the large and fancy American car bearing the Stars-and-Stripes flag, it turned out to be a car bomb. It exploded in a thunderous roar. The guard Gur-Arieh, who was standing next to car, was killed immediately. Part of the Keren Hayesod Wing was destroyed, with other wings of the building being damaged as well. The results of the bombing were severe: Nine employees of the National Institutions Building and three passersby that day – were killed; about a hundred others were injured. After initial treatment, forty of the people injured remained in the hospitals.
The most senior person killed was the Director-General of Keren Hayesod – the poet, public personality, journalist (he was the editor of "Haaretz" in his early years) and doctor of philosophy Leib Yaffe – one of the pillars of the Zionist movement from the time of Herzl. At the mere age of 23, he attended the First Zionist Congress as a representative. Since 1922, he was linked with all his heart to Keren Hayesod and from 1926, until the final moments of his life, he was one of the directors-general of Keren Hayesod. A considerable share of the 22 years of his tenure was spent travelling throughout the Jewish world. He was a highly sought speaker and was appreciated wherever he went to. During World War II he was "stuck" in the United States, and no one was as happy as he was upon returning to Jerusalem after the war. And now his life was cut short, in another war, in his very home.
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