Moshe Kochavi

Moshe Kochavi was born in 1928 in Bucharest

Kochavi was born in Bucharest, Romania, with the surname Stern. His father, Shmuel Stern-Kochavi, was a Zionist leader in Romania, and his mother, Agatha Abeles, worked for women's rights. The family moved to the Land of Israel in 1933.

In 1947 he joined the Palmach and fought with the Yiftach Brigade in the War of Independence. He was wounded at Safed and again, more seriously, in Operation Yoav. After the war he joined Kibbutz Yiron, and in 1954 he married the sculptor Nora Kochavi.

He began studying archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1955 under Yohanan Aharoni. He completed his doctorate there in 1967, on the Middle Bronze Age. After the Six-Day War he carried out the first comprehensive survey of the Judean Hills.

In 1968 he joined Aharoni at Tel Aviv University and helped found its archaeology institute, which he later headed. He excavated sites including Tel Aphek, Tel Zeror and Tel Hadar, and taught at Harvard, Tokyo and Oxford during sabbaticals. He chaired the Archaeological Council and sat on the government names committee.

He retired in 1998. In 2007 he was among the archaeologists who petitioned the Supreme Court to stop the Waqf's digging on the Temple Mount. He died in 2008 and had 3 children.