PM Modi To Meet 10-Year-Old Israeli Survivor Of 26/11 Mumbai Attack:- The first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel in July, would be Mr. Narendra Modi.
When Modi’s flight will land in Israel on July 4, many agreements, deals and treaties will be on cards but it will also be a special occasion for the 10-year-old Israeli child Moshe Holtzberg. Holtzberg has a special, but tragic Indian connection. The Israeli child, was just two years old when he lost his parents, Rivka and Gavriel Holtzberg in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, when two Pakistan-based Lashkar-E-Tayyeba (LeT) terrorists attacked Nariman Chabad House in Colaba, Mumbai.
While the terrorists killed six people in the building - including Holtzberg’s parents. He was rescued by his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel from imminent death, who managed to escape with him and his grandparents Shimon and Yehudit Rosenberg, from the Nariman House which came under attack by the LeT terrorists.
According to report, Modi is likely to meet Holtzberg on July 5. However, there is no word on the timing of the meeting and venue as of now. But it will happen in Jerusalem. As per Holtzberg’s grandparents, Holtzberg wants to be a rabbi and work in Mumbai. He lives in Afula, some 90km north of Israel’s capital city of Tel Aviv. The child’s family welcomed the decision of Modi to meet Moshe. They further said the gesture made them realize that Indians share their pain and they have not been forgotten.
In order to realize his dream of becoming a rabbi, PM Modi is likely to offer his help to Holtzberg.
The room where the child escaped death has been turned into a memorial of the deadly Mumbai attacks. During his India visit in 2013, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin had paid a visit to Chabad House where six people had fell to the bullets of terrorists.
Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg told a leading news channel that “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.” “I am deeply moved and cannot explain how good I feel at this gesture from the Indian Prime Minister. We are looking forward to that opportunity,” Rabbi Rosenberg added.
When asked what he would tell Modi when he meets him, Rosenberg said that he wanted to do his grandson’s ‘bar mitvah’, a ceremony performed for Jewish boys at the age of 13, which Indian scholars in Israel compare with upnayana or the thread ceremony, in Mumbai for which he would invite Modi.
“We feel we have a home in Mumbai and that we have a family there. I would like to do Moshe’s bar mitvah there in two and a half years and will ask Prime Minister Modi to attend it,” the Rabbi said.
The child’s parents served as representatives of Chabad in Mumbai. The Nariman House, also popularly known as Chabad House, one of the five places targeted by the terrorists, of which the Mumbai attacks occurred in which 166 people were killed.
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. Sandra, who saved the then two-year-old Moshe, from the clutches of death, by risking her own life, was honored with an honorary citizenship in September, 2010. During the week, she works with young kids in Jerusalem and joins the Rosenberg family in the north during the weekends, Shimon said.
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