‘We’re Moving to Nariman House’

By COLlive reporter

The 5th yartzeit of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, the slain Chabad Shluchim in Mumbai, India, was marked Monday with a memorial on their gravesite in the Har Hazeisim cemetery in Jerusalem.

Surrounded by family members and friends, R’ Nachman Holtzberg and R’ Shimon Rosenberg recited kaddish for their son and daughter who were murdered in the terror attack on their center in 2008.

In what was a heartbreaking moment, the young boy Moishy Holtzberg joined his grandfathers in saying kaddish. He is the sole survivor of the attack conducted by the Islamist terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Kislev 1 is also the yartzeit of the other victims of the attack on the Chabad center: Bentzion Kruman of Bat Yam, Israel; Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum of Brooklyn, NY; Yocheved Orpaz of Givatayim, Israel; and Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich of Mexico.

BACK TO NARIMAN

The Nariman House, the building in the Colaba area of Mumbai where the Chabad center was located and attacked, has remained mostly vacant since the attack due to security concerns.

But Rabbi Israel Kozlovsky, the current Shliach in Mumbai who was in New York this weekend for the International Kinus Hashluchim convention, said that will be changing very soon.

“I don’t want to make promises, because dates were announced in the past and not kept, but with Hashem’s help we’ll be back there before Pesach,” he said about the planned move in the next few months.

“We will be be holding the seder there and celebrate (the holiday of) freedom in true freedom, in the building of Gabi and Rivky, where they and their guests sacrificed their lives,” he said.

Kozlovsky, his wife Chaya Kozlovsky and their daughter Nava have moved to India’s capital a year and a half ago, serving Jewish visitors and Israeli backpackers with an array of programs out of their home.

Chabad has another center in Mumbai located near the Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport. Kozlovsky said local authorities asked for Chabad’s Jewish outreach activities be divided into 2 locations.

In related news, Aamir Khan, an Indian film actor, director, and producer who has established himself as one of the leading figures of Hindi cinema, has recently expressed sorrow over the attack on the Chabad center.

Khan and his wife Kiran Rao met Rabbi Levi Shemtov and his wife Nechama of American Friends of Lubavitch, at the inaugural Awards Dinner of America Abroad Media (AAM) in Washington, DC.

“We chatted about the Mumbai terror attacks and what occurred there,” Rabbi Shemtov said about his conversation with Kahn who was among TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World List and is a UNICEF ambassador to promote child nutrition.

“He said that India has been hospitable to the Jewish people for 2,000 years and he is sorry that this event tainted the history, noting that the attack on Nariman House was an attack on all of India. He said his goal is to promote goodness and kindness in the world.”