Odessa Street, at the crossing of Moorpark, was last week renamed Mendele Mocher Sfarim. The ceremony was ushered in by the playing of taps and the unveiling of a papier mache tombstone which focussed on the slated desecration by Soviet authorities of the Odessa Jewish cemetery. Congressman Barry Goldwater and other officials hosted the event. Mendele Mocher Sfarim, a prominent Russian Jewish writer, is burled in the Odessa Jewish cemetery. Rabbi Yossi Gordon, spokesman for the Concerned Citizens to save the Odessa Jewish Cemetery, said at the ceremony, “It is against the moral laws of any society to desecrate a burial site. We want to publicize this barbaric act and hope to stop it from happening.”
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