MUMBAI-JERUSALEM (EJP)--- Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, who are held hostage by two to five terrorists in their Chabad House in Mumbai, arrived in India’s financial capital in 2003 to serve the small local Jewish community, visiting businesspeople and the throngs of tourists, many of them Israeli, who annually travel to the seaside city.
According to Chabad.org website, concurring reports indicated that at least one American rabbi and one Israeli rabbi, both kosher supervisors who had traveled to Mumbai on business, were also in the Chabad House when the terrorists took the building by force Wednesday night.
Other reports from news organizations and field personnel say that as many as 10 people could be in the building.
Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, was born in Israel and moved to the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn, in New York, with his parents when he was nine.
He studied at yeshivas in New York and Argentina, and as a rabbinical student served communities in Thailand and China under the Summer Rabbinical Visitation Program run by ‘Merkos L’Inyonei Chinuch’, the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.
His 28-year-old wife, born Rivkah Rosenberg, is a native of Afula in Israel, who gives classes for women at the Chabad House.
Two years ago, the Holtzbergs raised funds to purchase the current location of the Chabad House, a five-story building in Mumbai’s Colaba market area known as Narimon House.
They operate a synagogue, teach Torah classes, provide drug rehabilitation services, and host scores of people for weekly Shabbat meals.
A trained ritual circumciser and slaughterer, the rabbi also conducts weddings for local Jewish couples.
Around 3,000 Jews live in Mumbai, India's business and financial capital.
The last word heard from the couple came in the form of a phone call the rabbi placed to the Israeli Consulate shortly after the beginning of the attacks. The line went dead in the middle of the conversation.
Based on the accounts attributed to the nanny who escaped to safety with the Holtzbergs’ toddler son Moshe, the couple and at least two others were believed to be unconscious.
Friday morning, Indian commandos began a full-fledged assault on the Chabad House, with troops airlifted in by helicopter while snipers trained their sites through windows from locations surrounding the building.
Footage broadcast by the Indian’s CNN network, showed a person waving what appeared to be a Jewish prayer shawl from a mid-floor window after the military assault began.
Friday afternoon, the military was reported to be in control of the upper two floors of the building and working their way downward. Numerous shots and apparent grenade explosions rang out throughout the day.
The attacks – in which more than 125 people were killed and more than 327 injured- began when Islamic terrorists came ashore near the Gateway to India monument carrying plastic explosives, grenades and machine guns and quickly fanned out to a restaurant, the Chabad House, several luxury hotels, a hospital and two train stations.
India has accused neighboring Pakistan of involvement in the attacks.