By Alex Joffe
On November 26, 2008, 10 terrorists from the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) launched a series of attacks in Mumbai that lasted 65 hours and killed 195 people. Most of the targets—a train station, a hospital, two luxury hotels—were selected for their high profile and their crowds. But another target was the Chabad center, Nariman House. There, two terrorists took Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his pregnant wife Rivka hostage, along with four others. During the subsequent siege by Indian forces, the couple were tortured, then murdered. Their two-year-old son, Moshe, was rescued by his Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel.  |
| Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka |
Indian police quoted the sole surviving terrorist, Ajmal Amir Kasab, as saying that Nariman House was the most important target, because LeT wanted to “send a message to Jews across the world by attacking the ultra-Orthodox synagogue.” Indian intelligence overheard the attackers being instructed by their handlers in Pakistan that Jewish lives were “worth 50 times those of non-Jews.” Why?
