It was exactly one year ago when Rabbi Yosef C. Kantor, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Thailand and the regional director of the Jewish movement’s activities in India, received a call in the middle of the night in Bangkok. A reporter based in Israel was on the line wondering whether a politically-motivated riot in the country was preventing Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries – who had just participated in their weeklong annual conference in Brooklyn, N.Y. – from returning to their posts.
“Thank G‑d, everything’s fine,” was his reply.
Ten minutes later, the same reporter called back, this time with unsettling news: Something had happened in Mumbai. Early reports indicated that an unknown number of gunmen had taken hold of key tourist hotspots in the Indian financial capital.
“Are Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg safe?” asked the reporter. “Is the Chabad House okay?”
It soon became clear, given reports from the Israeli consulate and police officials that things were far from normal, and that despite its back-alley location miles from local hotels, the Nariman House – a five-story structure housing the Holtzbergs’ home and Chabad center – had been seized.
For more than two days, a team of emissaries working around the clock from the New York office of the Jewish Web site Chabad.org, and homes and offices in Washington, California, Israel and Thailand did all they could to assess the Holtzbergs’ condition and the well-being of a handful of Jewish visitors believed to be staying with them.
A bit of good news came in the miraculous escape of then-two year old Moshe Holtzberg, cradled in the arms of his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel. But then things took a heart-wrenching turn.
The world watched as Indian commandos mounted an incursion on the Chabad House, as well as at the Trident Oberoi and Taj Mahal hotels. Just after the onset of Shabbat in Mumbai and minutes before the holy day arrived in Israel, it was clear that the worst case scenario had unfolded: The Holtzbergs and their four guests – kosher supervisors Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum and Bentzion Kruman, Israeli grandmother Yocheved Orpaz and Mexican citizen Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich – were among the more than 170 people killed in India’s worst terrorist attack in history.
Effort to Rebuild
Many of the same emissaries who worked so hard to guarantee the safety of the Chabad House’s occupants – and later arranged for the Holtzbergs’ burial in Israel – returned to Mumbai for a memorial ceremony at the site of the carnage. A live broadcast of the Nov. 26 event, which featured addresses from Rabbis Yehuda Krinsky and Moshe Kotlarsky, the chairman and vice chairman of the Chabad-Lubavitch educational arm; Israeli diplomats; and the fathers of the Holtzbergs, could be viewed online at the Jewish Web site Chabad.org.
Today, the Chabad House is a hollow shell of a once-flourishing welcome center for Jewish tourists, backpacking Israelis and travelling businesspeople of all backgrounds; its walls are riddled with bullet-holes, and scorch-marks from the Indian military assault remain.
But Rabbi Avraham Berkowitz, director of the Chabad Mumbai Relief Fund, says that the Holtzbergs’ legacy will live on. In truth, he adds, it never left: Not one Shabbat has gone by since the attacks where Jewish visitors have been fed and inspired, albeit at a secret, secured location. Rabbinical students teach Jewish teenagers at a local school. Still, some $2.5 million remains to be raised for the rebuilding effort.
“People all over the world recognize that this was far beyond a typical place of worship. The target of the terrorists was intentional,” states Berkowitz, who has been giving tours of the site in the past few days. “Through it all, it has and continues to radiate a message of strength to everyone who is involved.”
His voice exuding confidence, the rabbi compares the center to the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, which despite its destruction, elicits the hopes and prayers of Jews around the world yearning for its rebuilding.
“Until a new permanent Chabad is established with a full-time dedicated couple, there will remain a big void in the community,” explains Berkowitz. “We hope more people will visit ChabadIndia.org to help in the rebuilding of this holy house in Mumbai.”
For Kantor, who left last week’s annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries early to lead Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper through the Mumbai wreckage, the city has resumed a normal existence since last year’s attacks shattered its sense of security.
“Mumbai looks a lot like how it was,” says Kantor. “On everyone’s minds, though, is whether things have improved. At the Chabad House, there’s a huge surge in media requests; people are trying to get any snippet of information.”
“After hundreds of times walking through Nariman House,” adds Berkowitz, “I think back to what used to go on within these very walls and the happy memories that vanished one year ago.”
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