As the smoke clears and the dust settles from the terror attacks in Mumbai, details are emerging that the terrorists intentionally targeted Jews and Westerners, and specifically identified the Chabad House as a target. All of the hostages held in the Nariman House were killed before Indian commandos could supress their captors.
A group called the Deccan Mujahideen, a previously unknown group with ties to a foreign country. One of the captured terrorists stated that the attacks were in response to the suffering of the Palestinian people.
R. Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg
Among the almost 200 people killed were several Jews and Israelis. R. Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka Holtzberg, ran the Chabad House in Mumbai.
Their two-year old son Moshe has heroically saved by a caretaker, Sandra Samuel. Samuel locked herself in a room on the ground floor when the attacks began, and later made her way upstairs to find the toddler amongst several unconcious hostages, soaked in blood. Samuel grabbed the child and ran out of the house to safety. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that her office is working on arranging a trip to Israel for Samuel, who will be awarded the Righteous Gentile title for her actions.
Rivka Holtzberg was found dead on a lower floor of the Chabad House, covered in a tallis. She had been killed perhaps as early as Wednesday. R. Holtzberg had been killed closer to the end of the siege.
R. Leibush Teitelbaum
Also killed was R. Leibish Teitelbaum, a kashrut supervisor from Brooklyn who is the son of the Volover Rebbe and the son-in-law of the Toldos Avraham Yitzchak Rebbe.
Benzion Chroman
R. Bentzion Chroman, an Bobover chassid from Bat-Yam, was also killed. He was in India on business and was found shot, slumped over a gemara.
Yocheved Orpaz
Yocheved Orpaz, from Givatayim, was in India to visit her family.
Norma Rabinovitch-Shvarzblat, from Mexico, was planning on making aliyah after volunteering for a time at the Mumbai Chabad House.
Alan and Naomi Scherr
Alan Scherr, 58, of Arlington, VA, and his daughter Naomi, 13, were killed while dining at the Oberoi hotel (nearby the Chabad House). From the Jewish Times: “A memorial service for Alan Scherr and his daughter, Naomi, both murdered by terrorists in the recent attack on India’s financial district, will be held Sunday, November 30, 7 p.m. at the Etz Chaim Center for Jewish Studies, 3702 Fords Lane. Mr. Scherr’s sister and brother-in-law Soozie and Kurt Seiden are members of Tiferes Yisroel Bais Dovid, Rabbi Goldberger’s Shul.”
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Alan Scherr used to live in Baltimore. He was a counselor at Camp Milldale and for a short time was married to the daughter of some of our neighbors.