Mourners honor Jews killed in Mumbai

Funerals for 6 victims attract thousands

By Matti Friedman ASSOCIATED PRESS | Wednesday, December 3, 2008

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KFAR CHABAD, Israel

Throngs of Orthodox mourners packed the funerals Tuesday of six Jews killed in the Mumbai attacks, turning the narrow alleys of one Jerusalem neighborhood into a sea of black coats and hats.

The six died when gunmen struck the Chabad House, the Mumbai headquarters of the Orthodox Lubavitch movement, last Wednesday. Four Israelis, an American Jew and a Mexican woman were among 172 killed in the three-day attack across India's financial capital.

A huge crowd gathered Tuesday outside the red-brick Israeli headquarters of the Chabad movement, whose emissary to Mumbai, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, was killed along with his 28-year-old wife, Rivkah. Their bodies -- hers wrapped in a shroud, his in a prayer shawl -- were laid out on a dais outside. They were later taken to Jerusalem for burial, accompanied by thousands of mourners.

"We will answer the terrorists," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a Chabad official from New York, vowed in the eulogy, his voice shaking. "We will not fight them with AK-47s. We will not fight them with grenades. We will not fight them with tanks.

"We will fight them with torches!" he cried, referring to God's teachings.

He pledged to rebuild the Mumbai center -- one of thousands of Chabad outreach facilities around the world -- and name it after the Holtzbergs.

The couple left behind a 2-year-old son, Moshe, who was rescued by his Indian caretaker. He returned to Israel on Monday with the nanny and the bodies of his parents, but did not attend Tuesday's services. Before their flight Monday, the boy repeatedly cried for his mother at a tearful memorial ceremony at a Mumbai synagogue.

"You don't have a mother who will hug you and kiss you," Mr. Kotlarsky cried out during a eulogy that switched between Hebrew and English. But the community will take care of the boy, he vowed: "You are the child of all of Israel."

The only other surviving member of the family, Moshe's brother, has Tay-Sachs, a terminal genetic disease, and is institutionalized in Israel. The Holtzbergs' eldest son died of the disease.

The Holtzbergs had lived in Israel and Brooklyn before they moved to Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay, in 2003. Mr. Holtzberg also had U.S. citizenship.

Israeli President Shimon Peres and a slew of other dignitaries attended the Holtzbergs' services.

The grimness of the funerals was deepened by the conviction that the victims were struck because of their religion.

"It's a very difficult feeling because we know this was targeted against us," said Eliahu Tzadok, 41, who attended the funeral of another victim, 38-year-old Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum, an American who had lived in Jerusalem before his death in India. Mr. Teitelbaum belonged to a prominent family in the small, ultra-Orthodox Satmar sect, which is ideologically opposed to the state of Israel. There were no Israeli flags or government representatives at his funeral.

A fourth victim, 50-year-old Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich of Mexico, had planned to immigrate to Israel to join two of her children.

The other two victims were Yocheved Orpaz, 60, who had been traveling in India with a daughter and grandchildren, and Bentzion Chroman, 28, who like Mr. Teitelbaum, was a supervisor of kosher food.