Israel Names Nanny a ‘Righteous Gentile’

JERUSALEM, Israel — The Indian nanny who rescued two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg from the attack at Mumbai’s Chabad Jewish Centre will be conferred with a special honour usually reserved for those who risked their lives to save Jews from the Holocaust.

The “righteous gentile” award will enable Sandra Samuel to live in Israel. She and Moshe are expected to arrive in the country next week to live with the boy’s maternal grandparents.

Chief Rabbinate Urges Israel to Secure Chabad Houses

JERUSALEM, Israel — Chabad houses serve as a kind of Israeli embassies throughout the world and the government should allocate a budget for them accordingly and take responsibility for securing them, the Chief Rabbinate Council declared on Monday in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks.

Council members meeting for the first time since being sworn in about a month ago, adopted the proposal of Rabbi Shimon Elitov of the Binyamin Regional Council who is associated with the Chabad movement, and urged the government to act on this matter.

Chabad Vows to Continue Work of Couple Killed in Attack

BROOKLYN, NY — For many Jews, they are homes away from home: Chabad Houses, welcoming outposts in foreign lands or across the United States, places to drop in to celebrate Hanukkah, Passover or weekly Shabbat dinners.

Almost always, the Chabad Houses are run by young couples, emissaries of the Chabad-Lubavitch denomination, a Hasidic faith with its headquarters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, whose adherents believe that secular Jews ought to become more observant.

Analysis: Chabad’s Success Depends on its Accessibility

The terrorist attack on the Chabad House in Mumbai underlines the vulnerability of Lubavitch shluchim – emissaries – to global Jihad.

From its very inception, as conceived by the last Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who began leading the Hassidic sect in 1951 and who eventually turned it into a global powerhouse, Chabad was a non-Zionist, pro-Israel ambassador of Judaism.

Chabad offered an extra-territorial Jewish alternative to the Zionist state. Unlike Zionism, it never rejected the exile. It never bound Jews to a specific territory.