Sapirov (Spiashvili), Moshe

Son of Sarah and Joseph. Born in 1898 in Jerusalem. In this city he spent his childhood and youth. During the First World War he was exiled to Egypt and was among the first volunteers to join the detachment battalion that fought in the British army on the front of Gallipoli. After liberation, Moshe opened a soap factory in Alexandria, married and raised a family. In 1933 he immigrated with his family to Palestine and settled in Jerusalem. At the outbreak of the Second World War, Moshe, despite his age, was called upon to defend the national institutions, enlisted in 1940 into the British army, and was assigned to the cavalry corps. He served in Egypt and Libya under very difficult conditions and suffered from liver failure. Because in the military hospitals, under conditions of war, he could not be treated, Moshe was released from the army and sent to a hospital in Jerusalem. Despite devoted treatment, his illness worsened and after two or three months, on the 18th of Shvat, (5.2.1942), he died. Moshe was laid to rest in the cemetery on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. He left a wife, two sons and two daughters.