Mumbai terrorist booby trapped bodies of Moshe Holtzberg's parents

CNN:

...

It could be called one the miracles of last week's tragedy in Mumbai, India. Two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg and nanny Sandra Samuel were the only ones to make it out of the Chabad House alive after gunmen stormed the house, killing Chabad House directors Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, and four others.

Rivka Holtzberg, who arrived in Mumbai with her husband five years ago to serve the city's small Jewish community, was pregnant, her father said at her funeral Tuesday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

Those at the Chabad House were among 179 people killed last week when gunmen targeted several sites across Mumbai, including two luxury hotels, a train station and a hospital.

As the siege at the Chabad House began, Samuel heard the commotion, locked the doors and hid in a room. Video Watch throngs of Israelis mourn the dead of Chabad House »

"She heard Mrs. Holtzberg -- Rivka -- screaming, 'Sandra, Sandra, help, Sandra,' " said Robert Katz, executive vice president of the Israeli organization Migdal Ohr. Video Watch Katz describe the daring rescue »

The gunmen reportedly went door-to-door, searching for targets. Samuel unlocked her door and dared the gunmen to stop her, according to Katz.

She then ran upstairs to find the Holtzbergs shot dead, lying on the ground with their son crying over them.

"She literally picked him up and made a dash for the exits, almost daring the terrorists to shoot a woman carrying a baby," Katz said.

The two arrived in Israel early Tuesday on a flight with the boy's maternal grandparents and the bodies of his parents.

"Moshe, you have no living mother and father. ... Today you become the child of all Israel," Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a Chabad official from New York, said in a short ceremony at the Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv.

The return of the bodies was delayed until authorities removed hand grenades from the bodies, left there by the attackers, Katz said. (Emphasis added.)

Leading the efforts to provide Moshe with shelter and support is his great-uncle, Rabbi Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, founder of Migdal Ohr, Israel's largest youth village. It provides more than 6,500 "orphaned, impoverished, underprivileged and new immigrant children" with homes and education.

"Who could have ever predicted that someone who has dedicated his whole life to caring for orphans and children at risk would now be faced with having to care for his own grand-nephew and would need to help bury his own niece and nephew?" Katz asked.

Grossman also secured a one-year visa in Israel for Samuel to assist in caring for the boy as he transitions to his new life, Katz said in a statement on Migdal Ohr's Web site.

...


Booby trapping the tortured bodies of the dead parents is new information, but is consistent with Islamic terrorist tactics. The story also gives new details on how Moshe was found. The story seems to imply that the terrorist witnessed Sandra Samuels' rescue of Moshe Holtzberg. While that makes her actions even more courageous, it seems otherwise inexplicable when considering their overall conduct.

I think it is wise to keep Samuels with Moshe so that he does not feel completely abandoned. With his large extended family the talk of placing him in an orphanage seems strange. I suspect there are families in the US who would also be willing to raise him.

Comments

  1. It seems there are indeed a few different versions. In the context of the version which has some manner of contact between Sandra Samuel, and Mo's bug squad.

    I would picture a couple of Islamikazi bugs, high on crack, and toting machine guns (Prince anyone?). Faced with a human being, a woman no less, standing up to them. They have no response. No brass. Nothing dangles from their nethers.

    They are simply themselves. Tiny bugs. Unable to mount any sort of response. They immediately witness the failure of their nothing existence. And are frozen and lifeless.

    It is the very essence of the western world's required response to spread of militant radical Islam. Stand. Do not kneel. Be counted. Do not turn away. Neither flinch nor faint.

    And give them both barrels of whatever you have in hand. In Sandra Samuels' case, the weight power and majesty of a real human being. Who does not fear the Mohammedans. For she knows them for what they are.

    Tiny little bugs.

    ReplyDelete

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