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Modi to call on Israeli boy who lost parents in 26/11

Moshe Holtzberg was just 2 at that time and his kin are touched by the PM’s gesture.

June 30, 2017 03:25 pm | Updated December 03, 2021 04:53 pm IST - JERUSALEM:

In this November 28, 2008 file photo, Shimon Rozenberg holds his grandson Moshe Holtzberg in Mumbai after the boy’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah, were killed in an attack on the Chabad House.

In this November 28, 2008 file photo, Shimon Rozenberg holds his grandson Moshe Holtzberg in Mumbai after the boy’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife Rivkah, were killed in an attack on the Chabad House.

Moshe Holtzberg, the Israeli child who was just two years old when he lost his parents in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks , is looking forward to see Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who in a special gesture, will meet the boy during his visit here next week.

Mr. Modi’s decision to meet Moshe, now 10, has been welcomed by the child’s family members, who said that the gesture made them realise that Indians shared their pain and they have not been forgotten.

Mr. Modi will also meet Moshe’s Indian nanny Sandra Samuels, who managed to escape with him from the Nariman House which came under attack by Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists, and his grandparents Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg.

'Indians share our pain'

“I could not believe my ears when I got a call from the Indian envoy saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi wants to meet us. My immediate thoughts were that we have not been forgotten and that Indians share our pain,” Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg told PTI.

“I am deeply moved and can’t explain how good I feel at this gesture from the Indian Prime Minister. We are looking forward to that opportunity,” Rabbi Rosenberg added.

Modi invited to boy’s ‘bar mitzvah’

Asked what he would tell Mr. Modi when he meets him, Rabbi Rosenberg said that he wanted to do his grandson’s ‘bar mitzvah’, a ceremony performed for Jewish boys at the age of 13 which Indian scholars in Israel compare with upanayana or the thread ceremony, in Mumbai for which he would invite Mr. Modi.

“We feel we have a home in Mumbai and that we have a family there. I would like to do Moshe’s bar mitzvah there in two-and-a-half years and will ask Prime Minister Modi to attend it,” the Rabbi said.

Terror plucked his parents

Moshe was barely two years old when his parents Rivka and Gavriel Holtzberg, serving as emissaries of Chabad in Mumbai, were killed along with six others by LeT terrorists at the Nariman House, also popularly known as Chabad House, in Mumbai attacks in 2008 in which 166 people were killed.

The Nariman House was one of the five places targeted by the terrorists.

Moshe now goes to a yeshiva (religious school). He is still very attached to his nanny Sandra who works in Jerusalem and joins the family over the weekends. “He is always overjoyed when he sees her and plays with her the whole weekend,” the grandfather said.

Now, Sandra is an honorary citizen

Israel honoured Sandra, who risked her own life to save then two-year-old Moshe from the clutches of death, with an honorary citizenship in September, 2010.

She works with young kids in Jerusalem during the week and joins the Rosenberg family in the north during the weekends, Rabbi Shimon said.

Sources said that the time and venue of the meeting with Mr. Modi on July 5 has not been decided yet but it will happen in Jerusalem.

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