The United Synagogue

Community Shares Grief Of Mumbai Attacks

PRESS COVERAGE

London, 5th December 2008

COMMUNITY SHARES GRIEF OF MUMBAI ATTACKS

A memorial service was held in Barnet on Wednesday in tribute to victims of the Mumbai terrorist attacks.

Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks of the Mill Hill United Synagogue, in Brockenhurst Gardens, was joined by up 400 people to honour Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, his wife Rivkah, as well as the other innocent victims who lost their lives in the violence.

The couple were two of six Jewish victims killed by terrorists who targeted Chabad House in India on November 26. Their two-year-old son, Moshe, survived the attack after being rescued by his nanny.

The Indian Government has reported 172 deaths and 293 casualties mostly made up of civilians. A group of Pakistani militants calling itself the "Deccan Mujahedeen" has claimed responsibility for the coordinated wave of attacks.

Rabbi Sacks said: "We welcome our cherished friends, representatives of the people of India, here tonight and we say from the heart that we share your grief. Our thoughts are also with all the Jewish and Israeli victims of last week's attacks, in particular Rabbi and Rivkah Holtzberg, a caring and beautiful couple that radiated only warmth and joy.

He added: "May their memory be a blessing and may we be privileged to continue the work they began."

The Holtzbergs had moved to India from New York in 2006 to work in outreach centre of Chabad Lubavitch, an orthodox Jewish organisation, which offered lodging and ran a kosher kitchen for Jewish travellers out of the four-storey building.

Guests including John Marshall, mayor of Barnet, the Hindu Council UK and representatives from the Israeli Embassy and Chabad-Lubavitch UK attended the emotional ceremony.

Speaking at the event Henry Grunwald, president of the board of deputies of British Jews, stressed the importance of solidarity in the face of terrorism.

"We must not give terrorists a platform for their messages of death and outstretch our arm to all of those who will join with us to fight terror. If we give in to terror then they have won and we must not allow that to happen", he added.


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