New Shluchim Head to Mumbai

Chabad.org

Ten years after Islamic terrorists went on a savage killing spree in Mumbai, India, murdering 179 people including Shluchim Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, Chabad of Mumbai continues as strong as ever.

In the aftermath of the terror attack, in 2013, Rabbi Yisroel and Chaya Kozlovsky arrived as the new permanent directors of Chabad of Mumbai.

A year later, the Chabad center at Nariman House—rebuilt, refurbished and with high-tech security features incorporated—was reopened.

The building and the Chabad activities serve as a living memorial to the Holtzbergs’ mission in Mumbai—work the Kozlovskys see themselves continuing.

Four years ago, the Kozlovskys established the Jewish Academy of Mumbai, which began as a day care center and has since grown into a full day school.

With the expansion of the school, a new Shluchim couple, Rabbi Uri and Mushki Bloy, together with their 3-month-old daughter Rochel, are preparing to move from New York to Mumbai to help see that Gabi and Rivky’s dream turns into a reality.

Mushki Bloy remembers the Mumbai Attacks well. She was 14 at the time, a freshman at Beth Rivkah High School in Brooklyn, N.Y., and she and her classmates stayed up for days on end following the news and whispering psalms. She recalls waking up at 5 a.m. to tearfully watch the Holtzbergs’ funeral, streamed live from Israel.

Bloy is a child of Chabad emissaries. Her late father, Rabbi Moshe Freedman, directed Chabad of Bahia Blanca, Argentina—work her mother, Sarah, continues doing so. Bloy grew up an eight-hour drive away from the nearest large Jewish community, Buenos Aires, and as a child attended the Shluchim Online School. She had dreamed of becoming an emissary one day, but had her limits.

“I said that I would go anywhere but Mumbai,” she says. “Even somewhere in India, but not Mumbai.”

But then her husband, Uri, heard that the Kozlovskys were searching for a couple to join their team in Mumbai.

“Shlichus is not about the little details,” says Mushki, describing how her thinking changed. “We go where we are needed.”

And the need is there. Rabbi Bloy will be tasked with giving more adult Torah classes, working with tourists who come through Nariman House—home to Mumbai’s single kosher restaurant—and in addition to teaching at the school, Mushki will offer women’s classes. The couple will also lead the city’s new CTeen (Chabad Teen Network) chapter. Jewish Academy, however, will be their focus.