BROOKLYN, NY — Perusing the more than 600 reflections submitted by readers to Chabad.org in the days after India’s worst terrorist attack, one thing becomes clear: In the course of their short lives, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg – the directors of the Chabad-Lubavitch center in Mumbai whose bodies and those of four other victims were recovered the night of Nov. 28 – managed to touch many lives.
Outpouring of Emotion Seeks to Make Sense of Mumbai Tragedy
BROOKLYN, NY — Perusing the more than 600 reflections submitted by readers to Chabad.org in the days after India’s worst terrorist attack, one thing becomes clear: In the course of their short lives, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg – the directors of the Chabad-Lubavitch center in Mumbai whose bodies and those of four other victims were recovered the night of Nov. 28 – managed to touch many lives.
Collected among the dozens of submissions in the “Sharing Memories” portion of the Web site’s hastily-assembled section on the Mumbai terror attacks is a piece penned by Batya Rotter, who remembers her surprise upon first learning that Rivka Holtzberg was only three years older than herself.
Rivky “had a clarity of purpose and a purity of faith that you do not find often,” writes Rotter. “While there are times when I think of her as a friend, she is more than a friend. She is a role model, a vision of fortitude and courage, and a soul too precious for this world.”
Rotter was in Jerusalem the morning of Nov. 27 when she found out that the home in Mumbai where she had been a frequent visitor was under attack by terrorists. It was the same day as her sister’s wedding.
“While my sister and her husband began a journey of love and commitment,” says Rotter, “the couple who knew a love and a commitment to a calling beyond themselves were under attack. I thought about Gabi, and I thought about Rivky, and that is when I lost it.”
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