by Susan Rosenbluth,
Editor, Jewish Voice and Opinion

December 2008

According to a report in World Net Daily, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was murdered in last month’s coordinated terrorist raids in India, was so concerned about a possible attack on his Jewish outreach center, he forbade media photographers from snapping pictures inside the building, believing terrorists were seeking information on the house’s layout.

Nevertheless, according to Azam Amir Kasab, the 21-year-old Pakistani who is the only known surviving terrorist from the Deccan Mujahideen group that perpetrated the Mumbai massacre attacks, at least some of his fellow terrorists had previously stayed at the Chabad House, posing as "Malaysian students."

Their purpose had been to scope out the Jewish center, but it is unclear why rooms in the Chabad House had been rented to non-Jews.

According to Meie Alfasi, a photographer with Shterum.org, a news website affiliated with the Chabad Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Holtzberg, a beloved spiritual leader and teacher, spoke constantly of his fear of a terrorist attack on the Chabad House.

Once, when Mr. Alfasi wanted to bring a Reuters photographer to document Chabad House activities, Rabbi Holtzberg was adamantly opposed.

"He said that he was afraid of pictures, afraid of photographers, and afraid of unnecessary public exposure that could harm the Chabad House that is located in a very sensitive area," said Mr. Alfasi, who spent time a few months ago in India with the Holtzbergs.

The Jews who were murdered in the Chabad House include Rabbi Holtzberg, 29, (an American and Israeli citizen), his six-month pregnant wife, Rivka, 28, (an Israeli citizen), Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum, 37, (an American father of 8), Bentzion Chroman, 28 (an American and Israeli father of 3 from Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv), Yocheved Harpaz, 59 (an Israeli mother of 4 from Givatayim), and Norma Schwartzblatt-Rabinovitz, 50 (a Mexican citizen who was due to immigrate to Israel where two of her three children already reside).

The bodies of Rabbis Holtzberg and Teitelbaum, a kashrus inspector who resided in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Mea Shearim, were found in the Chabad House library. Although some early reports indicated Rabbi Holtzman had managed to cover his wife’s body with a tallis, later reports were less clear. It was also not clear if reports about the Jews having been tortured before their murders were accurate.

Rabbi Teitelbaum, a member of the Satmar community, was the son of Rabbi Nachum Ephraim Teitelbaum, the Volover Rebbe of America, and the son-in-law of the Toldos Avraham Yitzchak Rebbe.

Mr. Chroman, who also served as a kashrut observer, had just stopped at the Chabad House for a minyan. "Friends who found him told me his prayer book was still open," said his brother.

Ms. Harpaz was in India to visit her daughter and two grandchildren who were traveling there; Ms. Schwartzblatt-Rabinowitz was getting ready to travel to Israel to be reunited with her son.

Some Jews in Mumbai were luckier. Jonathan Ehrlich, a father of four from Vancouver, almost became a hostage at the Oberoi Hotel, where he was staying on a business trip. A father of four, he works in Internet technology and has a business in Mumbai.

Two business friends invited him for a drink at the hotel bar, but he declined because he was tired and had an early flight to catch. His two friends were taken by the terrorists.

In his room, he heard a "massive explosion." "The whole hotel shook, and I knew something was wrong," he said.

Running into the hallway, he heard the word "bomb." He said his "adrenalin just kicked in overdrive."

"I went in, threw my stuff together and picked up my bags, ran down the stairs and went into the lobby," he said.

There were no staff members or police, "only perplexed guests standing around, not knowing what to do," he said.

With glass and blood everywhere, he shouted, "We got to get out of here," and he ran towards the exit. In the hotel alleyway, he heard police yelling, "Run."

"I started screaming, ‘airport, airport’ and one of the guys from the hotel grabbed me and my bags and threw me in a cab and took me to the airport," he said.

He describes himself as "the luckiest guy on Earth" to have made it home safely, but, he said, as a Jew, he was saddened by the deaths in the Chabad House.

"We Jews are strong. We will overcome this," he said.

Rabbi Levi Shemtov, executive director of Chabad in Washington, DC, told Israel’s Army Radio that he had talked several times by phone with one of the terrorists holed up inside the Chabad House. He said a terrorist answered Rabbi Holzberg’s cell phone and claimed the hostages inside were all alive.

"I tried and tried and tried, and in the end someone answered and said, ‘hello,’" Rabbi Shemtov said.

According to Rabbi Shemtov, the man who answered said he was an Urdu speaker, so Rabbi Shemtov found an Urdu translator and dialed again. The man who answered "sounded very calm" and said his name was "Imran."

"He didn’t want to tell me what he wanted. He said the rabbi was OK, everyone was OK, that if they did what he wanted he would free them," Rabbi Shemtov said.

After learning that the terrorist wanted to speak to the Indian government, Rabbi Shemtov said he asked the man not to hurt the hostages and promised to get in touch with Indian officials.

"I asked if we could hear the voice of the rabbi, or someone who was alive there, and we only heard the voice of one woman screaming in English, ‘please help immediately,’" he said. "I asked him to pass the phone to the rabbi. He said, ‘You’ve already asked for too much.’"

Eventually, Rabbi Shemtov said, the assailant claimed the cell phone battery was dying and he hung up.

During the initial attack, the Chabad center’s cook, Sandra Samuel, managed to escape with the Holtzbergs’ two-year-old son, Moshe.

"I took the child, I just grabbed the baby and ran out," said Ms. Samuel.

When she emerged from the Chabad House, she said the rabbi and his wife, along with two other unidentified guests, were alive but unconscious.

According to Benjamin Isaac of the Indian Jewish Federation, when the baby was first seen, he was caked in blood. "Thankfully, it wasn’t his blood. But we knew someone’s blood has been spilled," said Mr. Benjamin.

Ms. Samuel, who was on the first floor of the building when the terrorists arrived, locked herself in a room, hoping to conceal herself. "The whole night I heard gunshots and loud blasts," she told police. "Next morning, it was quiet for a while, when I heard the baby crying."

She quietly unbolted the door and went up to the second floor where she found Moshe crying next to four people lying motionless on the ground. She picked him up and dashed out.

On Fri, Nov 28, Moshe’s maternal grandparents, Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg, came to bring the child and his parents’ bodies back to Israel. Special arrangements were made to allow Ms. Samuel to fly with the family and stay in Israel to care for Moshe.

Israeli security officials piecing together the events of the attack confirmed information indicating the Chabad house had been specifically targeted. During questioning, Mr. Kasab told interrogators that he and his men were sent to kill Israelis as revenge for "atrocities" against Palestinians.

The Times of India reported that Mr. Kasab revealed names and addresses of at least five people living in India who provided assistance to the terrorists in carrying out the attacks.

Joint Commissioner of Police Rakesh Maria said it was too premature to verify his information.

After the attacks, Indian newspapers reacted harshly to criticism from Israeli defense officials regarding the manner in which Indian forces raided the Chabad house and other terrorist targets throughout Mumbai, including luxury hotels, a popular restaurant, hospitals, a cinema, and a crowded train station.

Israeli, Indian, and international media quoted Israeli security officials as saying the Indian raid operations were premature and undertaken without sufficient intelligence.

Some Indian newspapers pointed out that, aside from the successful 1978 operation in which Israeli forces dramatically rescued Jewish hostages held at an airport in Entebbe, Israel’s record in other hostage-rescue attempts is less than stellar.

India’s 60-hour terror rampage, which began on Wed, Nov 26, and ended on Saturday, Nov 29, is being described as "Mumbai’s 9/11."

S.L.R.

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