Gerald Feingold passed away on 6 April 2009.

Born in Redcar on 23 August 1926, his family moved to Manchester when he was a child. His first job was in a steel laboratory until he was called up for Army Service in 1944. He served in Rangoon, Burma and became a Jewish Chaplain, organising High Holyday Services for his troops. Once demobbed, he enrolled at the Liverpool Dental School and qualified as a dentist.

He devoted much of his life to the welfare of the population of Israel. His defining achievement was the establishment of dental clinics staffed by volunteer dentists in Israel. The first clinic opened in 1980, in Ashkelon, and Gerald followed this by helping to establish oral hygiene programmes in various parts of the country.

As a practice principal he set standards of workmanship that his associates carried with them throughout their careers and he was particularly adept at salvaging broken restorative dentistry. In this regard his resourcefulness knew no bounds and he gave many lecture presentations on the subject.

He was awarded a Masters Degree for his prosthodontic studies and, in doing so, paved the way for many other general dental practitioners to undertake postgraduate research.

In his spare time he was a member of the Friends of the John Rylands Library and Jewish Historical Society. He used dental techniques to make jewellery and he was also a talented artist, winning a Colgate Award for Dental Art.

Almost to the end of his life he was treating patients and working on a research project on the longevity of dental restorations. He was a founder member of the Manchester Dental Friends of the Hebrew University and later the pioneering Dental Postgraduate Society of Manchester bringing his ebullient common sense to many a council meeting.

He was passionate about Judaism, Zionism and dentistry and he will be fondly missed by all his colleagues as one of dentistry's true characters.

He is survived by his wife Judy, four children and six grandchildren.