Mumbai Terrorism Touches New Haven’s Hasidic Jews

Meir "Chesky" Holtzberg is the cousin of slain victim Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who was killed last week by terrorists in Mumbai. His wife, Rivka, was also among the victims. (photo: Facebook via NewHavenIndependent.org)

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Meir “Chesky” Holtzberg was saying a graveside prayer when he learned the news: Terrorists were holding his cousin hostage in India.

A crowd turned out at the graveside to pray for Meir’s cousin, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, and his cousin’s wife, Rivka.Meir (pictured) had traveled Wednesday [Nov. 26, 2008] from his home in New Haven, Conn., to the grave in Brooklyn, NY, in order to say a prayer to mark his 33rd birthday.

He hadn’t known yet that the unfolding terror attacks in the Indian capital of Mumbai had spread to his cousin’s home. That Gavriel, Rivka, and three others were being held hostage.Meir Holtzberg moved to New Haven five years ago, part of a fast-growing community in the Beaver Hill neighborhood associated with the Hasidic Jewish Lubavitch/Chabad movement.

Meir’s 29-year-old cousin, Gavriel, with whom he’d been close since childhood, had made a different journey. Gavriel and Rivka took their young family to Mumbai to open one of some 5,000 “Chabad Houses” the movement runs worldwide to serve as outposts of learning and celebration.

Meir was saying his prayer Wednesday at the grave of the movement’s spiritual leader, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson. He was surprised to encounter the large group of fellow Lubavitchers there.“What are you doing here?” Meir asked.“We’re here to pray for your cousin.”

That’s how he found out his cousin’s life was at risk.Thus began a vigil into Thanksgiving of prayer that the hostages at the Mumbai Jewish center would survive.

Then they learned the sad news: The terrorists had killed five hostages, including Gavriel and Rivka.

A cook managed to escape the premises with Gavriel’s and Rivka’s blood-covered 2-year-old son Moshe, who’s now an orphan. They were among an estimated 174 victims of a terror spree that began at two luxury hotels frequented by foreigners.

Meir proceeded to contact U.S. government offices to try to arrange for emergency travel permission to Israel for family members.

Sunday he was returning home to New Haven’s Beaver Hill, where the neighborhood’s Lubavitch community held a Sabbath “kiddush” in honor of the Mumbai victims on Saturday.

A memorial service is being planned for this coming Thursday night [Dec. 4] at 7 at the Southern Connecticut Hebrew Academy at 261 Derby Ave. in Orange.Meir is returning home with a message of “light” inspired by his cousin’s life of charitable deeds.

“The only way to combat darkness is with light,” he said Sunday. “People should try to make the world a better place” in honor of his cousin, “increasing acts of goodness and kindness.”

A Beaver Hill Base

News travels fast through Lubavitch circles, with its large tight-knit families and so many of its young rabbis dispatched to open Chabad Houses around the world.

When a tragedy like last week’s strikes, people inevitably have relatives affected or else friends deeply impacted. That includes the community that lives within walking distance of the Lubavtich shul in New Haven’s Beaver Hill.

When Meir moved here five years ago, the community had 10 to 15 families. Now it has 63 families. The families tend to be young, with four, five, six children.

Most of the local Lubavitch used to be members of two extended families: the Dietsches and the Katzes.  Newer families have set down roots here drawn by a lower standard of living than New York, an easier pace, and a warm, heimische environment.

“There’s a Hasidic saying: We’re all one family. What happened to Rabbi Holtzberg is Mumbai affects us because he’s our brother in every sense of the word. We all feel interconnected. We’re all part of the same family,” said Alderman Moti Sandman, who grew up in the neighborhood.

Sandman is Meir Holtzberg’s brother-in-law. He said the Mumbai murders “shook me to the core.”

“Here you have a family that was giving of themselves,” Sandman said. “It shook a lot of the preconceived notions that I have about my personal security. This wasn’t a random attack. This was one of the key targets. They were clearly going after Chabad people” in India.

“We have a very noticeable Chabad community here” in New Haven, Sandman noted. “We don’t hide anything. We don’t blend in well. We can’t just walk by the wayside and people ignore us.”

source:  NewHavenIndependent.org

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