Moshe was born on November 11th 1927 in Safed. His parents Eliezer and Frieda, née Shim’oni, made aliya from Lithuania illegally, in 1925. He did elementary school in Tiberias then attended ‘Tif’eret Israel’ Yeshiva Haifa. At 15 he ceased studying and began working to help support their family of nine.
He was a Bnei Akiva trainee and joined the Haganah. When he found out about the Holocaust and the fate of Europe’s Jews, including members of his parents’ families who had been killed, plus having seen the Haganah’s sinking of the ‘Patria’ (to prevent its being sent back to Europe), causing many of its passenger immigrants to drown, he decided to join Lehi. After joining he diminished his Haganah activity and carried out his underground taskings: distribution of propaganda in greater Haifa, detective work, mapping positions of British officers’ homes on the Carmel and that of gunpowder warehouses in the quarries etc. The Haganah pursued him, detaining him for a long exhausting enquiry at their Haifa headquarters, threatening to punish him severely and turn him in to the British if he did not admit belonging to Lehi, but he feigned innocence and was freed. Two British detectives caught Moshe with a friend while on a mission, but they managed to escape. In 1945 he was arrested and sent to Latrun Detention Camp where he did three years in jail, continuing his studies inside. He helped dig a 100 meter long tunnel, discovered by the British on the eve of planned escape. When the Latrun prisoners were being transferred to Atlit, Moshe was notified of his upcoming release. Upon release, he smuggled out Shimon Sinvani in his suitcase, another Lehi member whose death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Moshe joined the IDF with all the other Lehi fighters, serving as a Signaler with Commando Battalion 89, taking part in all its fierce daring battles, together with his girlfriend and future wife, Ahuva Eina, combat paramedic. After their discharge, Moshe and Ahuva were among the founders of Kibbutz Neve Yair on the Gaza Strip border. They married in 1952 and have two daughters and five grandchildren. Moshe continued his forestry studies and instructed in ‘Gadna’ youth farms and the JNF forests. He also continued in landscape architecture, and participated as a member of Wingate Institute’s founding team, designing and laying out the garden and sportsfields. Since then he has headed and advised official bodies concerning grass-turf sportsfield issues and upkeep in Israel.
