LEVI, MOSHE

LEVI, MOSHE (1936– ), Israeli soldier, 12th chief of staff of the IDF. Levi was born in Tel Aviv to parents who had immigrated three years earlier from Iraq. His military career began in 1954 when he joined the Golani infantry brigade; in the Sinai Campaign he served as a paratrooper in the Mitla Pass. During the Six–Day War he was deputy commander of brigades in the Sinai and the Golan Heights. Later he commanded an armored division. Levi was the OC of the Northern Command from 1977 through September 1982 when he became deputy chief of staff serving until his appointment as chief of staff in April 1983. During his tenure as chief of staff, the IDF withdrew from Lebanon (in 1985). After his retirement from the IDF he returned to his home in kibbutz Beit Alfa and worked in farming. Subsequently he was appointed to a number of public positions, among them chairman of the Trans-Israel Highway Authority and the Anti-Drug Administration and member of the shamgar Commission investigating the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Hebron perpetrated by Baruch Goldstein. (Fern Lee Seckbach)