Mumbai, India – The third anniversary of the inexplicably brutal massacre that took place in Mumbai’s Nariman House will be commemorated this week with a series of shiurim on Shabbos for locals and guests at the current Chabad center and with an official program for dignitaries, both local and from abroad. The attack, which took place on November 26, 2008, took the lives of Chabad shluchim Rabbi Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg, as well as those of Rabbi Aryeh Leibush Teitelbaum, Rabbi Benzion Korman, Norma Shvartzblat Rabinovich and Yocheved Orpaz in a massive attack by Patkistani terrorists that killed over 160 in India’s most populous city, formerly known as Bombay.
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While the current location of Mumbai’s Chabad house is not officially disclosed, the address is passed along by word of mouth and the facility is protected by extremely tight security. Rabbi Chanoch Gechtman, who had assisted Rabbi Holtzberg at the Chabad house, was brought in to fill the vacancy in the summer of 2010, along with his wife Leiky.
As reported in Hamodia, the Chabad center continues to flourish in Mumbai and the local mikvah, originally named Mei Menachem and built by Rabbi Holtzberg, is now named for Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg as well.
“We prepare every Shabbos for sixty, seventy people, even one hundred people,” said Rabbi Gechtman. “We daven Shachris and Maariv, with a minyan, every day, with shiurim and a buffet for the Jews that live here.”
While Nariman House currently remains vacant, it is a site that is frequently visited by tourists, elected officials and foreign leaders and Rabbi Gechtman hopes that it will reopen in the near future.
The Volover Rebbe, Rabbi Nachum Ephraim Teitelbaum, father of Reb Aryeh Leibish HY”D, one of those killed in the attack, offered his thoughts on his son’s upcoming yahrtzeit in an exclusive interview with VIN News.
“We say by selichos the words ‘yehi ratzon shomaya kol bichyos, shetosim dimosaynu b’noidcha lihiyos, v’satzileynu mikol gezayros achzariyos’. We ask Hakadosh Baruch Hu, the one who hears the voices of those who are crying, to keep those tears in a flask, and save us from all harsh decrees. These tears of Klal Yisroel carry a very special Zechis and are never wasted. Why is it that we ask for our tears to be kept in a flask, which is only used for short term storage? We are mispallel, we daven with tears, and Hashem keeps those tears for when they will be needed.
“So many tears were shed because of the Mumbai massacre and since then, so many more tragedies have affected klal yisroel. We hope that the time has come that the in the Zechus of the Kedoshim who perished in Mumbai, that all these tears shall finally be used towards our zechus so that that there shall be no more gezayros achzariyos.”