By Mendy Lewis, COLlive reporter
Murdered Chabad Shliach to Mumbai, Rabbi Gabi Holtzberg had sent an email minutes before terrorists seized the Chabad Center, COLlive has learned.
The email was sent to Rabbi Guy Efraim, Director of Chabad of Goa, located on the west coast of India, who kept a close relationship with Holtzberg of Mumbai, a 45 minute flight from Goa.
“He sent me an email 20 minutes before the terrorist act,” Efraim told COLlive in an interview on Thursday, while trying to reach Indian officials from a temporary office at the Shluchim Office in Brooklyn, NY.
“It was work related,” Efraim told of the email, “and included an update about money issues and development of the activities. He was very dedicated to his Chabad House and the nearby ones too.”
The two planned on meeting at the Kinus – the annual international conference of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries which was held in New York November 19-24, 2008. “Gabi couldn’t make it for personal reasons,” he said.
Of the horrifying attacks, Efraim said: “We would have never thought they would hit Mumbai. There were always threats on Goa – a year, two years ago, they found a terrorist and explosives at our place.”
He said that his Chabad center is fenced in and has a guard, but “everything will be different from now. We’ll have to think how to change the level of security.”
Watch full interview in Hebrew:
ראיון עם הרב גאי אפרים שליח חב”ד בגואה from COLlive.com on Vimeo.
