Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka were among the 5 hostages found dead after Indian authorities stormed the Mumbai Chabad House held by terrorists Friday morning. The couple's 2-year-old boy Moshe escaped from the home Thursday with a local woman who worked as cook and nanny at the Jewish outreach center.
Chabad has been close to my heart for many years. My great-grandfather was a Chabad chasid in the old country, a fact that my family didn't know until long after my mother, and later, my father had returned to religious observance as adults. My parents lived in a Chabad neighborhood outside of Detroit for several years. After a trip to Israel with my parents when I was in my late 30s I decided to make up for my lack of Jewish education and attended Sunday classes at a school for Jewish women in Crown Heights for two years.
I did not know the Holtzbergs, but I know so many young Chabad couples like them who have opened their homes to me over the years.
"For five years, they ran a synagogue and Torah classes, and helped people dealing with drug addiction and poverty," Chabad leaders said in a statement about the Holtzbergs. "Their selfless love will live on with all the people they touched. We will continue the work they started."
Chabad has set up a fund to benefit their children (Ha'aretz reported that in addition to Moishe the couple had a second child who was not in the country at the time) and help rebuild the Chabad House in Mumbai. To donate: https://www.mychabad.org/templates/relief/donate.asp?&lang=en&site=chabadindia.org
Here is a beautiful tribute to the couple on JTA.org: http://jta.org/news/article/2008/11/28/1001247/for-gabi-and-rivki-in-blessed-memory
For more on this story: http://www.chabad.org/news/article_cdo/aid/773691/jewish/Mumbai-Jewish-Family-Killed.htm
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