A volunteer in Israel's 1948 War of Independence, Maurice Levene fought in the Galilee, writes Lennie Isaacs.
After leaving the army in the Second World War, he went to stay near his oldest sister in Liverpool. He was the youngest and last survivor of a London family of two girls and three boys.
Given contacts by his landlady's daughter, he went by train to London and an address in Oxford Street. There he received a train ticket for Marseilles.
After some days in tents, he flew by small plane to Haifa, arriving for Rosh Hashanah in September 1948. Israel had declared independence in May.
Formally enlisted in the Israel Defence Forces, he was posted from Beit Lit camp to the 72nd Battalion in B Company with platoon commander Lt. Stanley Medicks, now European co-ordinator of Machal, the Israel foreign volunteers organisation. Company commander was the Canadian war veteran Brigadier Ben Dunkelman.
After training at Samaria camp, just north of Netanya, Maurice took part in his first action, capturing Tamra, a hill near Haifa, from Jordanian forces.
In late September, the battalion was ordered to clear a large section of Galilee in Operation Hiram, from the village of Tarshicha north through Safed, Meiron, Sasa and Jish to the fortress of Mulakia at the Lebanese border.
B Company's first action was to take Meiron from Syrian forces. The troops walked from Safed by night to the wadi below Meiron. At first light they stormed a steep incline leading to the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, entered it and drove out the Arabs.
Having secured the position, they were bussed to Jish (Gush Halav), then marched to Sasa to provide support. A final bus journey took them to Mulakia, where they helped take and hold the fort, despite enemy fire from the hills.
They spent a bitterly cold Chanukah on guard west of Rosh Pinah, near Kibbutz Mishmar Hayarden. In January 1949 they were sent to guard the eastern frontier at Beit Shean.
In early February, as hostilities ended, the battalion was sent to Atlit to help at a new immigrant camp full of Holocaust survivors. At the end of the month they were disbanded and Maurice was given a ticket home.
Arriving home unwell, he met his future wife, Esther, when she visited him in hospital through a mutual friend. They married in 1950 and settled in London, where he worked in baking and tailoring before studying for a book-keeping qualification.
This led to auditing, first for the Royal National Institute for the Blind, then the British subsidiary of an American oil company and finally the National Westminster Bank.
While not religious himself, he supported his wife in ensuring that their sons attended cheder four times a week and shul every Shabbat. In 1997 he and his wife moved to Liverpool to be nearer their sons, who had married local girls.
A keen reader and owner of a mammoth stamp collection, he was also a regular blood donor for many years. Ill health prevented him and his wife from joining the Machal contingent at Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations earlier this year.
He is survived by his wife, two sons and four grandchildren.