India – Hoping to continue the legacy of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, both of whom were killed in the 26/11 attack on their Jewish centre in the city, the ultra-orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement has chosen Rivka’s younger sister Sara and her husband Rabbi Yaakov-David Leiter to replace them and carry on providing visiting Jews a “home away from home” in Mumbai.
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The Leiters are based in the northern Israeli city of Safed and applied for long-term visas this month which, Ministry of External Affairs sources said, were being processed.
Chabad sources said the movement has also more or less made up its mind to relocate the Chabad House from the building in the narrow lane in Colaba which was attacked by the Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists, and would look for a new place.
Chabad had been scouting for a couple to replace Gavriel and Rivka while its rabbis working elsewhere in India and abroad made short trips to Mumbai to pick up the pieces in the aftermath of the carnage in which four Jewish visitors to the centre were also killed.
The choice of Sara and her husband, it is learnt, was not difficult as her parents in Israel, Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg and Yehudit, were keen to preserve and build on the memory of Rivka and Gavriel as they were famous for their hospitality and kindness.
In fact, Rosenberg had told The Indian Express in December that when Moshe, the two-year-old son of Gavriel and Rivka who survived the attack, grows up, he wants him to return to Mumbai and do what his father was doing.
For now, Sara and Yaakov-David are not expected to find their task in Mumbai unfamiliar as the Leiters have been associated with a similar but much larger Jewish centre called Ascent in Safed. Yaakov-David’s father Rabbi Shaul-Yosef Leiter is the executive director of Ascent which owns a former hotel with 85 beds in Safed, a synagogue and a Jewish library which act as a youth hostel, recreation centre and a place for religious retreats.
According to Chabad the mission of the Leiter’s are to be tested first for only 3 months.
Hatzlacha Rabah U’muflagah!
Call me crazy but I don’t like the idea. (Go watch the movie Saving Private Ryan)
And the parents are also saying that want to send Moshe back to Mumbai when he gets older..this is beginning to sound a bit manipulative. The memory of the kadoshim would be best served by quietly renewing the chabad presence in a more secure facility without making a big deal out of the family linkages.
wow! continuing with the rebbes shlichus!!! true chassidim!! may you be safe and sucessful!!!!
Enough of this nonsence. They’re desperetaly trying to do something to keep themselves going in a good way. Y do people always have to knock everything?
I fully understand the feelings of the victim’s family, but this decision appears to be pure meshugaas.
This place is now considered a mukom sakonah! those blood thirsty terrorists were looking to kill Jews I’m Mumbai, so why send a peaceful young couple to a battlefield with planted mines?
A little bit of sense please!
It is dumb. Putting yourself in harmsway is not part of the torah. I don’t seen anyone doing schliachs in Iraq or Turkey and there are Jews there!
However I will wish them Saftey and may G-d bless them and keep them safe.
It’s amazing to see how many people here can judge another without being in their shoes. I think you should read back what you write before you hit post. Putting yourself in harms way is not part of the Torah??
The Jewish nation is dying with more and more Jewish people being assimilated into western culture, marrying non jews and leaving Yiddishkeit. We are losing 100’s of 1000’s of future generations of Yidden and you think we’re not ALL in harms way? We’re in harms way right here in America. Every day your child is walking in the streets he is harms way of being exposed to a goyishe world that could take him away from us.
These tzadikim are our only soldiers in a war to preserve our way of life and to ensure our children and children’s children are still Jewish.
What right do you have to judge them or even worse question why they do this amazing task.
ki malocov yitzvah loch yismorcha bchol deruchau h’ yismor tsaschu uvoachu matay vad olom
I hope that they will hire several well-armed security guards for the new chabad center. May HKB”H Watch over them, and all yidden, bichol makom shehaim!!
#6 very well said & to #3 shame that you don’t understand a other yids tzar & is looking for some nechuma
If they go or not is their decision, however i hope they have full security. wishing you lots of luck yaakov dovid and sara. may G-D guard you wherever you are. i know you do terrific work i’ve benefitted from many a chabad house. be strong we’re the army of Hashem.
just wondering…..after the events in Mumbai I’m guessing it won’t be so attractive a place to tour for all the wandering Jewish souls that Chabad hosted there in the past. So why the rush to set up again?
Quick it hink we need another dozen at least songs and music videos!!!!!
Actually the fact that new shluchim are going to Bombay is because there are still many yidden there who need their services….. a place for Shabbos, kosher food, etc. etc. It has nothing to do with the family specifically asking to send them there. They are going as shluchim to fulfill the needs of Jews in far away places and may Hashem protect them and help them.
The fact that the sister of Rivky Holzberg will be the new shlucha is understandable: if a family member can continue the work, it is obviously a nice choice, especially since it does give some measure of comfort and strength to the family. But if it would not be the sister going out there, it would be another shaliach anyway.
So let’s all just pray for their safety and success and I am really sure that Hashem will not allow tragedy to strike twice in the same place, chasve shalom. Would you tell all yidden in Israel to move away chasve shalom because there are terror attacks? Israel also could be called a place of sakana by some people….but we know Hashem’s eyes are upon it constantly, and for sure Hashem’s eyes are also upon any place of kedusha which serves Jewish needs. And all of this is intricately connected with the coming of Moshiach so ultimately let’s just pray for Moshiach!
Mazel Tov to our friends the Leiters of Tzfat. I was amazed and touched that Yaacov Dovid and his wife Sara will be continuing in this holy mission of the Rebbe. May Hashem bring consolation to the Herzberg and Rosenberg families and Klal Yisrael in the fulfillment of this mission of total mesiras nefesh. Loving wishes from your friends in Oak Park, MI, USA. United in prayer for Moshiach Tzidekeinu!!