Chabad House Victims on Their Way to Israel for Burial

Following a tearful memorial ceremony for the terror victims recovered from the Chabad-Lubavitch center in Mumbai, India, family members and the deceased are in transit to Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.

An Israel Air Force jet touched down yesterday with forensic teams and diplomatic personnel from the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Israel Defense Force, Israel Police and ZAKA, a volunteer search and rescue force that specializes in the proper care of Jewish bodies. The same jet took off from Mumbai at about 7:15 p.m. local time and was scheduled to land at Ben Gurion by 11:30 p.m. Israeli time.

Joining the bodies of Chabad House directors Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg; kosher supervisors Rabbi Leibish Teitelbaum and Bentzion Kruman; Israeli grandmother Yocheved Orpaz and Mexican citizen Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich; were Rivkah Holtzberg’s parents, Rabbi Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg, who had flown in on Friday from Israel; their now-orphaned grandson Moshe, who turned two on Saturday; and Sandra Samuel, the Indian nanny who courageously saved the boy from the Chabad House Thursday morning.

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Current plans call for the Holtzbergs’ funerals to begin at 11 a.m., with a procession from Kfar Chabad, Israel, to Jerusalem’s Mount of Olives cemetery. Information about the other victims’ funerals was not immediately available.

The Mumbai memorial service took place Monday morning at the Knesset Eliyahu Synagogue, where Gavriel Holtzberg led services and read from the Torah following the passing of the congregation’s cantor two years ago. Approximately 100 people, including Israeli officials and visiting tourists, attended the service.

In his remarks, Shimon Rosenberg recalled the tremendous self-sacrifice of his daughter and son-in-law in serving the needs of the local Jewish community and the thousands of visiting businesspeople, tourists and Israeli backpackers who they met over their five-and-a-half years at the Chabad House. He also called on those gathered to continue their work.

Turning to Samuel, who told reporters last week that when she heard Moshe crying her only thought was to save him from the gunmen, Rosenberg thanked her for her heroism.

“With her great resourcefulness, Sandra saved my grandson’s life,” he said, according to the English Web site of the Israeli newspaper Yediot Achronot. “If she hadn’t grabbed him, he would surely have been murdered.”

With the help of the Chabad-Lubavitch Youth Organization in Israel, the Holtzbergs’ family requested that the Israeli government allow Samuel to live in Israel in order to continue to provide care for Moshe.

At the memorial, Israeli Ambassador to New Delhi Mark Sofer pledged that his country would do everything possible to prevent similar attacks in the future.

“The State of Israel will not rest as long as Israelis and Jews are massacred across the world for the sake of being Jewish.”