A glimpse into the life of Rabbi Gabi and Rivky Hotzberg—the Chabad emissaries to Mumbai, India.
44 Comments Posted
First, I should say that I am not a Jew. But I am proud that my long-ago ancestors on my mother's side were.
Seeing the life that the Holtzberg's lived, and seeing the outpouring and love of the community, I found myself wishing that I was a member.
As for myself, I am a Roman Catholic who has been deeply moved by the Holtzberg's example of love, service, and scholarship to their fellows.
I am so very saddened by their tragic deaths.
May God give them, their son, their family, and their entire community peace.
May God bring their murderers to justice.
I am so sorry for their loss...
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You are a Jew my friend. If your mother's side was indeed Jewish. You are a Jew and don't even know it!
contact your local Chabad rabbi
I'm from Mebane, NC -
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I applaud the people who worked tirelessly to produce this video. This is a beautiful tribute to Rabbi z"l and Rivka z"l Holtzberg and all the victims who suffered in the Chabad House.
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I wish to express my sorrow at the loss of the young rabbi and his wife in so terrible a manner. I offer prayers and condolences to all who were blessed to have known and come into contact with them. May the Peace and Love of the Almighty be upon you now and always. Although a gentile, I have a deep and abiding love for the Jewish People. G-d is a G-d of Mercy but also of JUSTICE!
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Dear Zahava,
Thank you for your kind note. I am proud of my mother's heritage - even if we don't know the details. I actually have thought about contacting Chabad House in CH.
Peace and all goodness to you and your family,
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We're all Jews when we act righteously. Like Sandra Samuel did for little Moshe. She could could formally convert but I think a piece of paper is less important to affirm who you are than how you act. That is the difference between the wicked and the righteous. There is a Jew within all good people, even they aren't born Jewish. They just don't realize they can change the world with prayer and a single good deed, one day at a time.
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Thank you so much for making this labour of love - this video.
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We type these comments with a heavy heart.
We are saddened and dismayed by such awful and shameful events. We are moved so profoundly by the out pouring of not only Jews who support Chabad.
We hope that G-d provides solace for those who mourn the loss of Rabbi and Rivka Holtzberg of blessed memory and the others who perished that fateful day in India.
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It is so deeply saddening to see such wonderful, energetic, young and good people suffer so at the hands of terror and inhumanity. Baby Moshe's image is deeply inscribed on the heasrts of every feeling and thinking Indian. May God bless him.
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I cried throughout this video. Kol hacovod to all the people who put this together I hope we all can learn to be like them and bring Moshiach NOW!!!
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Chabad has an incredible ability to motivate and awaken sleeping souls to action. With G-d's help, we should be able to be inspired without tragedy and fulfill each of our individual mission in a peaceful, healthy, beautiful way.
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This sad event teaches us that we are once again targeted because we are Jews. We have to defend ourselves against this new antisemitic era, under the name this time of Islamic extremism. We cannot any longer be slaughtered and maimed as we have been for centuries. This time, with faith in G-d, we have to be stronger and aggressive. It's either us or them, a matter of survival.
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This very sad event only goes to show that there is no escape to what is in store for the world & jews to come unless something is to be done now . We and the world are still in denial/sleep in which the light at the end of the tunnel growings darker & darker. Thank G-d for Chabad and all the mitzots that they do. People of the world need to out shine bring light into the terrible darkness that is in stored for us. I encourage to be like Chabad & do an act of loving kidness no matter how small it is and do it on a regular basis. So we can have the strength when needed to over come this terrible darkness. May everyone share in the merit of the coming of the Mashiach now!
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The video was very inspiring - thankyou for sharing it with us. I am curious to know what R.Gavriel responded to the Rebbe when he received the dollar - does anyone know?
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Dennis Prager, the great modern-day thinker, author and t.v. and radio talk show host, called on Jews and civilians to get "deputized" and carry guns for protection of Shuls, hotels, and other targeted areas of interest from terriorists. He believes this massacre would never have taken place by only 10 men had Chabad and the hotels been armed by private "security" personnel. Maybe it's time to press for such legislation for allowing qualified private persons to perform such training through background checks. It certainly would add an additional level of comfort to us during our prayer times and Shabbos as well as send a very strong message to anyone even thinking of such tactics to think twice. If the Church of Scientology has such armed private guards on their payroll and were allowed to kill a man in front of the Hollywood building last week because he had approached the entrance with a sword and exonerated, then why can't we, who are more justified, have the same rights?
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I am so saddened by this tragic loss. I am proud to be a jew. I am a Sephardi Jew and am proud to have an association with many Chabad friends and Rabbis. The Chabad followers are indeed a special community. Throughout the world, wherever you go, you will see and meet Jews at a Chabad House in one corner or another througoutr the world. They dedicate their lives to enrich other Jews. Their wellcome is always warm and loving and their table always shared. The Holtzbergs were such people. We have questions as to why this had to happen. But no answers. Their son Moshe will grow up without them, but not without G-d right by his side. May G-d Bless their souls.
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these amazing people would want their lives and memories to be an inspration and strength for jews to do more chesed and mizvot in the world.
may this become true, and may their families be comforted among all the mourners of zion and Jerusalem.
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No words can express no tears can console
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I am so deeply touched by this tragedy. Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah were very special human beings. They did not deserve this fate. As for their son Moshe, life without a mummy and daddy will never be the same. There is no explaining this senseless violence.
I am a hindu and am sad this event took place in India. Each and everyday I think about the Holtzbergs and Moshe as I am myself a mother of a 2 year old boy who is exactly 1 month older then Moshe. In his eyes I see Moshe and try to understand what he must be going through and cannot even imagine how hard it must be for him.
God give us strength to let go of hatred and look beyond the boundaries of religion and pray for all mankind to co-exist in peace.
Dear Moshe, I hope you come out of this tragedy as a much stronger, much wiser and sincere human being. May you blossom like a flower cause you are precious and you deserve all the love you can get from your family. You will be in my prayers forever.
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thank you so much. how inspiring. the producers of this video successfully captured the purity of the selflessness of these shluchim. simply, how special they were. "two of our finest." thank you for inspiring me to go on shlichus.
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Thank you for creating and sharing this tragic beautiful video story.
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it was very sad to read that after what they did as shlihim and they left a precious little soul. i am waiting to hear about moshe and to continue after his amazing parents.
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This incredible story shows the highest degree of kindness, spirituality,and love, and the lowest kind of human behavior. I pray that the world will learn how the Rabbi, his wife and their followers gave so much positive to their community. I can't understand why events like these occur. God must have some plan for Moshe.
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As a Bombayite, I do not have words to describe the sadness I feel at the death of this wonderful young couple who had made my city as their adopted home. Even though I didn't know them or had never heard of them before the attacks, I feel as though I have lost one of my own. My thoughts and prayers go out to little Moshe. He is of the same age as my daughter and I hope he visits Bombay again once when he grows up. And I also hope that he does not harbour any ill feelings towards my city. We are very ashamed that the "City of Dreams" shattered his childhood dreams.
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This tragic story makes me think of Moses saved from the Nile - the hotbed of idolatry and ego - by one of those whose culture's pathway was idolatrous and antithetical to Torah. In this case, the righteous woman who saved little Moshelah's life, was no doubt from a similar idolatrous culture yet rose above and saved this gorgeous child.
May they both be blessed with a long life, and much success in everything they turn their hands to.
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The film is very impressive. I meant to watch just a minute or two, and I couldn't move for the whole 18 minutes of film.
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The making of the film is inspiring ....
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Beautifully done. May this film inspire the bringing of more and more light into the world until the complete and final redemption, immediately. We cannot wait a moment longer. It is ENOUGH!
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No one can ever destroy what these two brought into the wold with their love and vision an it can only grow blessed with the tears of those feel their loss. We can understand such evil or senseless violence, for if we could understand it, we might also do it ourselves and be engulfed by such violence ourselves. work begun and live honorably in the the shadow of the light of those who showed us the way. Truly the loss is incomprehensible and the act reprehensible, but the goodness and the love of these two now touches and encircles the world.
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they have to be stop, before they act, some people call it "preemptive strike," but this is the only way to overcome those fanatic evil people. First is to try to educate them, first by the media, than if they're caught - educate them in jail, and as a last resort, if they are unrepentant, to wipe them out. So the world will become a better place for good people, for those who like to live peacefully in this world.
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Such dedication and faith to be rewarded by such evil makes me angry that such young lives were ended. I often thought of the tragic death of Rivkah & Gavriel Holtzberg during the course of the last year.Not long after their murders, the parents of Gavriel were in Australia helping to prepare food for bushfire survivors.This video only makes me more determined to keep helping others who are less fortunate and how precious Judaism is for those Jews who need to be enlightened. May their memories not be forgottten
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As the Rebbe of Blessed Memory once mentioned, our neshama (soul) is forever. Evil destroyed the Rabbi z.l and his beloved Rivki z.l but evil cannot destroy their neshama. All their mitzvots will go before them and may G-d bless little Moshe and all those who helped him.
Words are never enough to express the grief and anger. At first, I was mad angry, but prayed to G-d, then I had an inspiration. I will be a better Jewess and do more mitztvots in their blessed memories. They are an inspiration.
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Desciribing this act of evil as a tragedy is an understatment. The murder (and the others) of these two wonderful people is beyond the assessment of moral degradation. It is impossible for me to believe that the perpetrators of this evil, claim to believe in the same g-d that we Jews believe in. I do not believe that they do.
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I pray for peace & do mitzvot. However noble this is. It doesn't inhibit these dark forces.
I'm saddened but also angry. This does not have to happen. We have been so conditioned that the authorities will look after us. We as Jews need to take responsibility for ourselves by not being easy victims.
So often I have tried - Begged my shul, my community to become more "Code yellow" More proactive with security, using people in our own community.A few trained parents at a Jewish function, knowing that their family are there, would be more effective than a couple of professional security guys doing another job.
I was part of such a group in S. Africa. We trained many in our community. We did neutralize threats before they happened. Word got to our adversaries that we were not a soft target & that we had a reactive capacity too. We had a 100% success. I remember how often threats were hushed up, so as not to make the community nervous. This is also being done here & it is dangerous.
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The video asks if a shot can be so powerful, how much more can kindness accomplish? But that is the question, isn't it. Despite all their kindness, those few shots destroyed them and their ability to do more.
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Beautiful souls. They are an inspiration to do good around us and THAT is their legacy. They had to die to show us that people like them still exists. They have not been sacrificed in vain. It is a wake-up call to alert us that Jews should be more vigilant and be ready to protect themselves from the evil forces that surround the world more than ever. Let us not fool ourselves, the Human Race is not kind and we know it.
Exceptions like this young couple are rare, they are angels, that was the purpose of their life in this world.
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My wife and I, along with her entire family, spent a Shabbos with the Holtzbergs in Mumbai back in August 2008. Moshe was only one and a half at the time and he spent most of the meals attempting to get rice and puréed vegetables all over himself and anyone that ventured too close. He was a very cute and happy child who cherished the love and affection that his parents and the many guests in attendance at the Chabad house gave to him. His parents, Gabriel and Rivka were absolutely wonderful people. Warm, energetic, and dynamic. We connected with them via email prior to leaving Toronto and we first met them in person at the famous Keneseth Elyahu Synagogue (sometimes referred to as the Sassoon Synagogue), located adjacent to the Gateway of India, where Rabbi Holtzberg led davening. We davened with them Friday night as well as Saturday morning and afternoon. We also had the pleasure of joining them at the Nariman House for all 3 Shabbos meals, which I recall fondly as it was the only tim
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The work, effort and ultimate sacrifice of this wonderful couple is of the highest order.
We must see that their efforts are not in vain.
And even more, we must make Aliyah (move to Israel) now for Aliyah together with living a more observant life will not only help protect our people, but it will also hasten the arrival of the Moshiach.
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This is so sad when i heard this i did not like it one bit
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I was so shocked and saddened last year when I heard of the Holtzberg's tragedy. A hard story to hear but in their lives they inspired me and many others to try to lead a more actively Jewish life.
My condolences to all of their family members and to all members of the greater Chabad family. Your work is making a huge difference. Am Israel Chai !
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Moshe's Indian nanny has just been given temporary residential status in Israel so she can contine taking care of this poor child who lost his 2 amazing parents to terrorism.
With much sadness I watched this heart wrenching video.
Am Israel Chai. (The Nation of Israel lives.)
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at this very moment I will say my morning prayers and I will do it in honor of these good people who gave their lives for the sanctification of G-d's name.
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I watched this video with my hand to my heart and I tried to stop the tears, but they would not stop, and I am weeping, still.
I believe, there will be an answer, and I believe that answer is coming. What is clear, is what the Rebbe is saying, and that is, we sanctify by doing good deeds, by positivity, with heart and that is the definition, surely of, soul.
I don't believe it's over when it's over. And I mean there's another side to this story, and they live on, both in our hearts and in that beyond place, of soul. I see in the word exist, the word exit. And I see that life is a door, life is adore.
There is a deep and ongoing bipolarity to life and how it is lived. The phoenix does always rise from the ashes, and those of great heart, whose lives bear such magnificence, such magnification of the light, well, I don't for a moment believe they are gone. They surely live on, in others, and at a soul place I do believe, they are watching us, and whispering, climb that ladder. Climb!
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I was looking through these comments, and I think that even though Gabi and Rivky aren't with us anymore, they did a mitzvah. How?
Mary Martin just figured out she's Jewish, and that's thanks to this, to Gabi and Rivky's video.
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Mission of Love
The Story of Those Cruelly Murdered at the Mumbai Jewish Center |
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A glimpse into the life of Rabbi Gabi and Rivky Hotzberg—the Chabad emissaries to Mumbai, India. | |
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