DESIGNED FOR CENTURIES; CONSTRUCTION AFOOT ON SIMI'S JEWISH CEMETERY.

Byline: Sylvia L. Oliande Daily News Staff Writer

Mount Sinai Memorial Park an Mortuary is under construction in the hills northeast of the city, where it is expected to serve the region's Jewish population for the next two centuries.

The cemetery was conceived to serve the burgeoning Jewish community in east Ventura County, but also to take over for the 45-year-old cemetery in Hollywood, where plots are nearly sold out.

``Mount Sinai Hollywood Hills has about 25 years of growth left,'' said Robert Levonian, the cemetery's architect. ``But in cemeteries, 25 years is a very short time.''

Sinai officials said they have been selling space out of their Simi Valley office for two years, and people in Ventura County and west Los Angeles County have been glad to have a facility closer to home.

Although there are Jewish sections in secular cemeteries, there is no one facility dedicated to the faith in the area.

Andy Weinstein, president of the B'nai Emet congregation in Simi Valley, said he had been surprised to hear that Mount Sinai chose the city to rele its operations since there are other areas with larger Jewish communities.

But he said the park is welcome because for many Jews, all-Jewish cemeteries are preferred over secular cemeteries with sections set aside.

``Because of the thousands of years of anti-Semitism, they want to be surrounded by their own,'' he said. ``When you walk through Forest Lawn, you see crosses . . . That's not a negative, but it's not necessarily a positive.

This way you can be surrounded by people you know were Jewish,'' he said. ``It's a cultural feeling.''

Officials said the new cemetery is expected to have a life span of about 250 years - until the Jewish millennium year 6000. And, although it was designed for the next century, it also is expected to be rooted in the past.

At the groundbreaking two years ago, the local soil on the site was mixed with some imported from Israel. And officials are busy collecting earth from Nazi concentration camps throughout Europe to encase in the cornerstonethe cemetery entrance.

The facility is to be located on 165 acres north of the Ronald Reagan Freeway near Yosemite Avenue. It will include an administration building and chapel, as well as a standard aboveground crypt.

The park also will be home to the Hall of Living Memories, a museum honoring Jewish leaders in Los Angeles, and the Grove of Righteous Gentiles, a pedestrian pathway and grove of trees honoring those who helped the Jewish people during the Holocaust.

Finally, the park is expected to include a system of entombment that is unique in the United States but more common in Israel. It mimics the ancient burial techniques found at the Caves of Machpelah, with a modern twist.

These wall crypts are to be cut out of the hillside and covered again by a top layer of earth, with skylights cut out for natural lighting.

Officials said the Caves of Abraham, as they are to be called, appeal to those who wish to be entombed above ground but also meet the Orthodox standards requig the faithful to be surrounded by earth.

The memorial park has been in the planning stages for about six years, and though the temple broke ground on the land two years ago, state and federal environmental regulations delayed actual construction until this month.

The facility is expected to be completed by May 2000. Dioramas depicting the design of the park can be seen at the Mount Sinai Simi Valley office, 5775 Los Angeles Ave.

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3 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color in Simi Edition only) (Ran in Simi and Conejo Editions only) Surveyor Dave Marples surveys site improvements Monday for Mount Sinai Memorial Park and Mortuary, under construction in Simi Valley.

(2--Ran in Simi Edition only) Construction is under way for the Mount Sinai Memorial Park and Mortuary.

(3--Ran in Valley Edition only) A worker prepares fittings for the chapel and administration building for the new Mt. Sinai Memorial Park and Mortuary.

Tina Gerson/Daily News