Aspiring Filmmaker Eulogized at Service

Family members paid glowing tribute Wednesday to Zacharia “Zaki” Gordon of Thousand Oaks, the film school graduate who died Saturday in a fiery explosion after his sport utility vehicle hit a gasoline tanker truck on the Ventura Freeway in Westlake Village.

“I don’t know where you are today, Zaki, but I can hope you can hear this because I don’t want you to go without knowing how very proud of you I have always been,” said Gordon’s mother, Jo-Ann Gordon.

More than 250 mourners packed into the Tenach Chapel of Mt. Sinai Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles on Wednesday as friends and family eulogized Gordon.

Attendees remembered Gordon as an aspiring filmmaker who graduated this year from New York University film school.

Gordon’s father, Dan Gordon, talked about how his son had grown up surrounded by the film business. Dan Gordon, a screenwriter, said his son wanted to follow in his footsteps by making movies. Zacharia Gordon made short films and wrote feature-length scripts, his father said.

Gordon’s younger brother, Yoni, 19, played guitar and sang as a tribute to his brother. Adam, Gordon’s 14-year-old brother, told funny stories about his oldest sibling. Both brothers were passengers in the Chevy Blazer when Zacharia Gordon was killed, and escaped with only minor injuries.

“We may not be able to see him, and we may not be able to hear him, but he is alive in each and every one of us--a different story for each person and a different memory of Zaki in everyone’s mind,” Adam said.