Iosif Moscovi
In 1958, Iosif became the table tennis champion of Moldova. The following year he captured the Soviet Union junior title for the same sport. Then for a decade he continued his mastery of the Moldova championship, winning the crown each year from 1960-1970.
Then he turned to coaching and helped members of the Moldovian team win the Soviet Union championship in 1971,1972 and in 1973 and 1974. His p;ayers also took second and third place in the Eastern championship in London in 1970.
Moscovici was graduated in 1956 from a high school in Bendery, Moldova, then later earned an associates degree in internal medicine at the Bendery, Medical College. He subsequently enrolled at Kishinev State University in Kishinev Moldova, where he earned a masters degree in in phys ed. He subsequently became a phys ed teacher at Technical College in Kishinev.
Iosif emigrated to the United States 1n 1996, settling in Rochester where his daughter Rose lived. He became a fitness instructor at the JCC. In 1999, 2000, and 2001 he to teenage table tennis teams to the Maccabia Games, coaching them to three gold medals, four silver and four bronze.
Now retired, he continues to coach table tennis at the JCC on a volunteer basis. He and his wife Marganta also have a son Alex who attended Utica College. A toddler during World War II, his mother, brothers, and sisters escaped the Nazis by fleeing eastward deep into the Soviet Union, but his father was killed during the war.
Iosif says the U.S. is the greatest of all nations. “You can become anything that you want ti in the U.S. No one holds you back.”