By COLlive reporter
Moishy Holtzberg, the child who survived the terror attack on Chabad of Mumbai in India, is currently visiting New York with his grandparents to prepare for his upcoming Bar Mitzvah.
Holtzberg donned Tefillin for the first time Wednesday morning during Shachris prayers, flanked by his grandparents Rabbi Nachman and Freida Holtzberg, and Rabbi Shimon Rosenberg, who together with his wife Yehudit, are raising him in Afula, Israel.
Holtzberg was a toddler when Islamic terrorists stormed the Chabad House located in the Nariman House in Mumbai and murdered 5 Jews in 2008, including his Shluchim parents – Rabbi Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg HY”D.
In those dark moments, TV cameras showed a woman escaping the building holding a child. It was Sandra Samuels, the family’s Indian nanny, and little Moishy.
The young Holtzberg has become a symbol for Jewish survival. He was warmly greeted in New York as he visited the Rebbe’s Ohel in Queens and Jewish areas in Brooklyn.
The occasion is his “hanochas Tefillin,” when a 12-year-old boy begins putting on Tefillin daily some 2 months before he becomes a Bar Mitzvah, according to Chabad custom.
A family member told COLlive that Holtzberg has received a new pair of Tefillin for daily use. “He uses his father’s Tefillin when he goes on Mivtzoim,” he said, referring to Chabad’s outreach activities.
His parents are shepping Nachas with the Rebbe at what a wonderful bochur Moishy appears to be. It’s hard to fathom even a decade later how such a terrible thing happened, but the best comfort is the knowledge that Moishy follows in his parents’ path. Mazel Tov to Moishy and his family.
Miracle that he survived and was raised by his holy Zeide to become such a fine looking young man. H should bless him until 120 to be a zchuss to the memory of his fine parents, HY D, and to gantz K Y.