Page 16 - Rehavia advanced 130918

Advanced level – ‫רמה מתקדמת‬

Bank Yefet

Bank Yefet, in Rechavia, was managed by a quiet, well-mannered German man.
Every day the manager and his assistant came to the bank and managed the financial
affairs of the quiet neighborhood. On Wednesday, August 21, 1940, a young man
entered the bank and asked that they break a one-lira note. He left but returned
immediately because his real intention was to make sure that there were no other
customers in the bank. This time he entered with two comrades and all of them
were masked. Two were armed with pistols and one with a wooden rod. They hung
a sign on the door that said: "The bank is closed today because of mourning". Then
they locked the door from the inside.

The robbers forced the bank manager and his assistant to give them all of the bank's
money. They stuck bandages across their mouths. The burglars escaped out the
front door but to their misfortune, Mrs. Wolf, the bank manager's mother in-law,
lived in the apartment above the bank. She had heard suspicious voices and went
out to her balcony and began to scream. A number of young fellows who were
playing tennis in the courts opposite the bank heard her screams and came to her
aid. They chased the burglars and caught two of them. The third one, who was
carrying the bag of money, managed to escape.

This was the first bank robbery in Jerusalem. Everyone knew that the robbers were
from the underground group, "Etzel" (the Stern Gang), which fought the British. At
that time, Etzel was suffering from an acute shortage of funds and had decided to
fill their coffers by robbing a bank.

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