Survivor of 2008 Mumbai massacre: I want to go back as Chabad envoy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met on Wednesday with Israeli youth Moshe Holtzberg, a survivor of the November 2008 terrorist attack that killed his parents and seven others at Mumbai’s Chabad House.
His late parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, were directors of the Jewish center. Moshe was a toddler at the time and was rescued by his nanny, who fled the building with him. Now 10 years old, Moshe lives in Afula with his grandparents, Rabbi Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg, who joined him at the event, along with his former nanny, Sandra Samuel, who came with him to Israel.
Moshe told the Indian prime minister that he misses India and would like to return when he grows up as the envoy for Chabad. Modi responded that the country is open to him. Netanyahu invited Moshe to accompany him on his upcoming visit to India.
Moshe was taken hostage along with his parents and several tourists by terrorists who raided the Chabad House in India’s largest city.
“We’re glad that Prime Minister Modi met with Moshe and recognized the sacrifice of his parents, an exceptional couple and our personal role models, to establish Chabad-Lubavitch in Mumbai, and their service to the Jewish people,” said Rabbi Yisroel Kozlovsky, co-director of ChabadLubavitch of Mumbai.
“My wife, Chaya, and I are humbled to be a part of, and to continue the holy work of Rabbi Gabi and Rivky
need a framework for implementation, Netanyahu said that he and Modi “have our feet firmly planted on the ground,” and have directed their staffs to “bring us concrete plans in these diverse areas.”
Defense cooperation between the two countries has for the last 25 years been the relationship’s primary engine, with Israel one of India’s top three weapons suppliers, but this is something that neither man spoke of to any significant degree.
Nevertheless, the joint statement reaffirmed “the importance of bilateral defense cooperation over the years,” and said “it was agreed that future developments in this sphere should focus on joint development of defense products, including transfer of technology from Israel, with a special emphasis on the ‘Make in India’ initiative.’”
Some three months after saying in Beijing that Israel’s relationship with China was a marriage made in heaven, Netanyahu said the same thing about the relationship with India.
“I have a feeling that today, India and Israel are changing our world and maybe changing parts of the world,” he said. “Because this is a cooperation, it’s a marriage really made in heaven but we’re implementing it here on earth.”
Netanyahu began his comments by saying that “almost 30 years ago, I went on a date in Tel Aviv in an Indian restaurant, and produced two fine children. The food was great,” he said.
Then in reference to the dinner he hosted for Modi on Tuesday evening, Netanyahu continued: “So yesterday, I asked Reena Pushkarna, who was the owner of that restaurant, to prepare this dinner, for this date, and it was equally good.”
Netanyahu, who has shadowed Modi throughout most of his first day and a half in the country, will do so on the final day as well, traveling with him in the morning by helicopter to Haifa, where they will visit the Haifa Indian Cemetery and the Rambam Medical Center. They will also meet Israeli and Indian business people and innovators, and see cutting-edge Israeli and Indian technological innovations before Modi is scheduled to leave in the late afternoon. • Holtzberg, and are working diligently on actualizing the dream of a Memorial Museum at Nariman [Chabad] House, that will help continue their legacy.
“We look forward to welcoming Israel’s prime minister during his visit to Mumbai with Moshe Holtzberg,” Kozlovsky added. “It is our hope that this historic visit and meeting will create awareness of this project, and the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s vision for a better, more peaceful world.”
The attack on the Chabad House by an Islamist terrorist group based in Pakistan was one of a dozen attacks throughout the city from November 26 to November 29, 2008, that killed 164 people and wounded at least 308 others.
Ten gunmen arrived on the Mumbai shoreline in a dinghy on the day of the attack, before splitting into four groups and embarking on a killing spree. They held off elite commandos for 60 hours in two luxury hotels, the Jewish center and a train station in the city.
The Mumbai attacks in 2008 brought Pakistan and India to the brink of war.
In late 2012, India secretly hanged the lone surviving member of the Pakistan-based terrorist squad responsible for the rampage.
Jerusalem Post staff and Reuters contributed to this report. •