Praise and Thanks

When Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated last December, Angelenos commemorated him by laying candles, roses, ficus leaves and olive branches at the base of the Raoul Wallenberg statue in the Fairfax district. Those who regularly walk by the statue were not surprised. Almost every week since the memorial was erected in 1988, elderly Jews have left offerings by the statue of the Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews during World War II. “The people walk by and lay branches or a candle and say a prayer,” says Willie Silva, a security guard who works nearby. “It takes them just a few minutes.”