Moshe was born on 15.2.1915 in Yemin Moshe in Jerusalem. His father Avraham Yakir, was the grandfather of the revered Rabbi Shalom Mordechai HaKohen Schwadron, who made aliyah as a child from Galicia with his siblings and later married Yaffa Gottfried. Together they had six children, and they wandered across the country. In Haifa, Moshe’s father had a furniture store. Some time later, the business was sold, and the father worked as a chemist in the Nur Match Factory in Acre.

Some time later, they moved to the Boruchov neighborhood (now Givatayim) near Tel Aviv. They opened a dairy farm. However, they had to destroy it after an outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease. The family then went back to Jerusalem, opening a store selling food, drink, newspapers and pamphlets; it was located on Nathan Straus Street, near Bikur Holim Hospital.

Moshe studied in Netzach Israel School and Mizrahi Teachers Seminary. He was active in HaNoar HaLomed, Brit Hashmona’im, IZL and finally Lehi. As a lover of painting and sculpting, Moshe wanted very much to study at the prestigious Bezalel Art Institute. When he could not get in, he tried his hand at various occupations, from making wooden crates in an orange packing factory, to working in the orchards, to building police stations, to installing the infrastructure for the Haifa Oil Refinery. He became a work supervisor at the Dead Sea Works and a supervisor at Mekorot.

In Hadera, he met the love of his life, Shoshana Elkin, a kindergarten teacher. They married and moved to Jerusalem, where Shoshana continued teaching and Moshe worked at his father’s store, which became an ad hoc post office for Lehi’s correspondence. Among his “postmen” were Rabbi Aryeh Levin, the prisoners’ rabbi, and future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir.

The family home, up on HaAri Street, was a large wooden structure, with fruit trees and a well. It proved quite useful as a Lehi meeting place and armory. Mattie Shmuelevitz’s manuscript, which had been written in prison, was also hidden there. It was also a sort of boarding house for Lehi members. Shoshana (Emuna) accepted everyone who arrived who knew the password, Yehuda. This included fighters wanted by the CID and the injured, who would recuperate from their wounds.

In the IDF, Moshe served as a sniper; he continued in the Civil Guard in Katamon. He was also one of the founders of the canine unit around Kiryat Hayim.

As a retiree from the aircraft industry, Moshe wrote poetry, sculpted and painted. He and Shoshana had a daughter Adva and three sons, Yoav, Shir and Eli.