by Reb Akiva at Mystical Paths

Just some initial thoughts after attending the funeral of the holy martyrs Rabbi Gavriel & Rebbitzen Rivka Holtzberg, hy"m (may Hashem avenge their blood).

On a hot clear day in the Holy Land of Israel, 10,000 Chabad chassidim and other Jews of all stripes gathered to pay their final respects to two holy souls who gave their lives for Torah, Judaism, Chassidut, and for Ahavat Yisroel - HELPING THEIR FELLOW.

Some might think that the Rabbi and Rebbitzen never planned to actually give up their lives for the ideals of doing good for others and connecting every Jew to Hashem and His mitzvot - but actually they did. They left a comfortable Western life to go to a foreign land. They gave all their time every day, from morning till night, to serve others. They gave their days and weeks and months, and in the end, their lives.

For being good. For doing good. For helping people. For keeping an open door.

Hashem, Ad Mosai! Thoughts still too painful, wound too fresh. We are used to soldiers falling in physical battle. It's terrible, but soldiers die. We are not used to it in spiritual battle. May we not need to get used to it.

Photo Slideshow - Here.

The crowd

The press

The eulogies, the bodies wrapped for burial to the left

Some came from India, both Jews who have visited and locals

L'Zecher Nishmas, In Memory Of


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Oy the chutspah, it hurts my head.

With all the grace of the Menendez Brothers begging the mercy of the court as orphans, the infamous Rubashkin clan (”The largest corporate suppliers of the desecration of God’s name in America, with the lowest prices around! Ten chilulei-hashem for 20 bucks. But for you? $19.95!”) and their cronies are at it again.

Voila: The “War On Kosher” petition site. My family’s neighborhood in Brooklyn had been coated in big black flyers with the WOK website’s address when I went home for Thanksgiving & Shabbos last week. The signs blared “Lo ta’amod al dam achicha” — Don’t stand by as your brother’s blood is spilled, and “Ve’ahavta lere’acha kamocha” — Love your neighbor as yourself. What a treat, I thought - usually one would have to go all the way across the borough to Satmar-cum-hipster Williamsburg for that kind of irony!

I’m sort of astonished to discover that there are still Jews out there who missed the three-ring circus of scandal at Agriprocessors/Rubashkins, who are moved by the following appeal (extracted from the email jungle by our Jewschool secret agents):

 I’m sorry, Hindy, but you broke it, you buy it. If La Famiglia Rubashkin can no longer afford their rock-and-roll lifestyle, it’s not my problem. They wouldn’t be in this position if they had actually followed the Choshen Mishpat & the Federal Law codes and built their “kosher” fleish empire on honor, honesty, and service instead of on fraud, abuse, and greed.

For anyone who still can’t stop watching the trainwreck:
+ The indefatigable Shmarya Rosenberg is still covering new developments in the story at Failed Messiah.
+ and “FightinBack” at Daily Kos has the entire sordid tale organized by date back to 1983.

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G-d willing, we are making our way to the funeral of the kedoshim Rabbi Gavriel & Rebbitzen Rivka Holtzberg, hy"m. The funeral is scheduled for 1:00 PM today (Israel Time) in Kfar Chabad and from there to Har HaZeisim.

The funeral for another victim, Reb Aryeh Leibish Teitlebaum, hy"d, is scheduled for 2:00 PM today in Meah Shearim at the shul on D'vora Ha'Neviya St, and from there to Har HaZeisim.

We'll be attempting to live tweet (mini-blog posts via Twitter) the event, below. In addition, the first part is scheduled to be broadcast online live here.

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Published at Mystical Paths, MPaths.com. Reading it somewhere else? Stop by the source!

Rabbi Marvin Hier, dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, delivers his address at the memorial service for Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg at the Chabad House in Westwood California. Excerpts:

The world should be very clear – achieving martyrdom by killing innocent civilians is an abomination – it is a concept that desecrates religion, denigrates humankind, and defames G-d himself.

But it is not only the terrorists who bear the responsibility – it is the religious leaders who programmed them, inspired them, and sent them, who are equally culpable. Joseph Goebbels and Julius Streicher never killed anyone – but they were named as war criminals at Nuremberg because on a daily basis, they poisoned the minds of tens of millions of Germans. That is exactly what the Imams of the Islamic Fundamentalists do.

The world must not remain silent. We have the tools to at least do something. The United Nations must make suicide terror a priority. Why is it that the General Assembly can call special sessions on drug cartels, on AIDs, on disarmament, on apartheid – all crucial issues – but it has not yet called for a special session on the greatest crime of the 21st century – suicide terror?

Related:

1. Simon Weisenthal Center

2. Pictures: Tears of the two-year-old boy trapped in Mumbai Jewish centreas his parents were murdered.

3. Video: "Ask for Death". (Two 11 year olds explain how their fondest wish is to die for Allah).

4. Recent coverage of the Mumbai Attacks: Mumbai attack - Analysis and Comments by Mark Steyn, Bill Roggio, and others & Videos

5. Newsvine links aggregator- selected articles by tag: Anti-Semitism, India, Islamic Extremism, Terrorism, More videos.

6. New Site: "Recommended Videos"

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The bodies of the kedoshim (the holy ones) slaughtered at the Chabad House in Mumbai, India are soon to depart for their final journey to Israel.

UPDATED.

Funeral arrangements have been announced for the Chabad shluchim, Rabbi Gavriel & Rebbitzen Rivka Holtzberg, hy"m:

- The funeral will begin Tuesday, 1:00 PM Israel Standard Time, to begin in Kfar Chabad (Chabad Village outside of Lod) Israel, by the headquarters of Agudas Chassedi Chabad - 770 Kfar Chabad.

- The funeral will proceed to Har HaZeitim (the Mt. of Olives) in Jerusalem.

Rebbitzen Holtzberg's, hy"m parents have announced THEY WILL BE RETURNING TO INDIA to take over the Chabad shlichus (outreach work) of their daughter and son-in-law! They intend to rebuild the Mumbai Chabad House, and raise their orphaned grandson there to take over when he completes his education and is of age.

The orphan Moshe with his grandparents.

Published at Mystical Paths, MPaths.com. Reading it somewhere else? Stop by the source!

Video: The siege is over. The police are now cleaning up:

Mumbai Attacks: Some Articles of Interest:

1. Bill Roggio's analysis of the Mumbai attack, the significant differences from previous attacks, and the wider implications:

The Mumbai attack is uniquely different from past terror strikes carried out by Islamic terrorists. Instead of one or more bombings at distinct sites, the Mumbai attackers struck throughout the city using military tactics. Instead of one or more bombings carried out over a short period of time, Mumbai is entering its third day of crisis.

An attack of this nature cannot be thrown together overnight. It requires planned, scouting, financing, training, and a support network to aid the fighters. Initial reports indicate the attacks originated from Pakistan, the hub of jihadi activity in South Asia. Few local terror groups have the capacity to pull of an attack such as this. (Read it all)

2. Mark Steyn- "It’s Not the Cold War-- Updating Strategy to Fight the Ideology":

What’s relevant about the Mumbai model is that it would work in just about any second-tier city in any democratic state: Seize multiple soft targets and overwhelm the municipal infrastructure to the point where any emergency plan will simply be swamped by the sheer scale of events. Try it in, say, Mayor Nagin’s New Orleans. All you need is the manpower. Given the numbers of gunmen, clearly there was a significant local component. On the other hand, whether or not Pakistan’s deeply sinister ISI had their fingerprints all over it, it would seem unlikely that there was no external involvement. After all, if you look at every jihad front from the London Tube bombings to the Iraqi insurgency, you’ll find local lads and wily outsiders: That’s pretty much a given.

But we’re in danger of missing the forest for the trees. The forest is the ideology. It’s the ideology that determines whether you can find enough young hotshot guys in the neighborhood willing to strap on a suicide belt . . . or, if active terrorists are a bit thin on the ground, whether you can count at least on some degree of broader support on the ground

This isn’t law enforcement but an ideological assault — and we’re fighting the symptoms not the cause. Islamic imperialists want an Islamic society, not just in Palestine and Kashmir but in the Netherlands and Britain, too. Their chances of getting it will be determined by the ideology’s advance among the general Muslim population, and the general Muslim population’s demographic advance among everybody else. (Complete Article)

3. Scene of Unimaginable Carnage Inside Taj Majal Hotel:

The scene Saturday night inside the Taj Majal hotel was one of unimaginable carnage in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist onslaught across Mumbai.

Two Indian commandos told FOX News that 150 bodies still were inside the hotel, and dead victims were found all over the hotel, on all five floors.

The terrorists used incendiary bombs, or grenades thrown on gas or fuel canisters, indicating they had access to the Taj hotel in advance, though the Taj Majal hotel denies any staffers were involved. ...

The siege was particularly troubling because “they didn’t spare women or children.” (cont'd)

4. Mumbai horror: Rescue workers shocked by Chabad massacre site

5. Mumbai photographer: "I wish I'd had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back"

It is the photograph that has dominated the world's front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India's most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

But what angered Mr D'Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. "There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything," he said. "At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, 'Shoot them, they're sitting ducks!' but they just didn't shoot back." (Read it all)

6. July '08: Article about India's relatively ineffectual responses to jihadi terror:

Delhi Carries a Small Stick

Israel bombs the Osirak nuclear research facility in Iraq in 1981 after alleges that Iraq is using the facility to develop a nuclear weapons program. China seizes and dismantles a United States EP-3 aircraft after it allegedly ventures into Chinese airspace in 2001. The US invades Afghanistan after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001.

And then there is India. An attack on the Indian parliament in December 2001; hijacking of Indian Airlines 814 to Afghanistan in 1999, which was released only after the exchange of three terrorists, including one who was later responsible for the execution of US journalist Daniel Pearl; terrorist attacks in Jaipur in May 2008, Hyderabad in August 2007, Mumbai in July 2006, Varanasi in March 2006, Bangalore in December 2005, Delhi in October 2005 and Ayodhya in July 2005; a recent surge in infiltration across the Line of Control in Kashmir; and this week's attack on the Indian Embassy in the Afghan capital Kabul.

India's reaction: point fingers at political opponents and turn the other cheek. (cont'd)

7. Sept. '08: India seeks IDF help in Kashmir conflict

8. A look at major attacks in India since 1993

9. July '08: Two years later, Mumbai blasts still cause pain

MUMBAI, India — Nearly every day for the past two years, two mothers have sat at their sons' bedsides and repeated almost the same words. "It's time to go home," they tell the young men. "Don't you want to leave the hospital?"Mumbai's top neurosurgeons tell them not to expect replies. Both mothers pray their children will emerge from the severely brain-damaged states they were plunged into after bombs ripped through seven commuter trains in Mumbai two years ago. The July 11, 2006, bombings killed 187 people and injured more than 800. (cont'd)

10. Discussion of British Muslims reaction to the Mumbai Massacres (Video).

11. Mumbai terrorists were'funded by cash raised in UK mosques'

12. News reporters brought hidden cameras into several mosques in the U. K. and recorded the goings-on. What they discovered is quite shocking. Video: Undercover Mosque.

13. July '08: Almost a third of British Muslim students believe killing in the name of Islam can be justified, according to a poll. (The study also found that two in five Muslims at university support the incorporation of Islamic sharia codes into British law).

14. Apr. '08: U.K. monitoring 30 U.K. terrorism plots

15. Oct. '08: Terror threat in UK 'approaching critical'

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