MUMBAI (AFP)---There were emotional scenes at a Mumbai synagogue Monday as a two-year-old orphan cried out for his parents – Rabbi Moshe Gavriel Hotlzberg and his wife Rivka murdered by Islamic terrorists who attacked the Chabad House in the Indian city.
Moshe Holtzberg cried out "Ima, Ima," which means "mother,mother" in Hebrew, as he accompanied his grieving grandparents and dignitaries including Israel's ambassador to India, Mark Sofer, at the synagogue memorial service.
The toddler's parents were among those who died when the heavily armed terrorists stormed into the Nariman House complex in the Colaba Market area where they lived and worked since 2005.
So far, the bodies of six Jews have been identified and an Israeli official said the toll could be higher as forensic teams try to identify more.
The five-storey building, also called Chabad House after the Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement, served as an educational centre, synagogue and a hostel for Israeli tourists.
Rivka's father, Shimon Rosenberg, told about 100 mourners at the Keneseth liyahoo Synagogue that Chabad House will be rebuilt.
"The house they built here in Mumbai will live with them. They were the mother and father of the Jewish community in Mumbai," a tearful Rosenberg said.
"The House of Chabad will live again."
Moshe survived the carnage after his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel, 44, fled with him in her arms when the militants captured the building, which is now crumbling and unsafe following a two-day siege.
Samuel and the toddler were due to fly to Israel later Monday, ambassador Sofer told AFP.
"She has been given a passport," he said, adding that the identified bodies would also be sent to Israel later in the day.
An Israeli forensics team has been sent to Mumbai to help identify the victims, some of whom were badly mutilated, possibly because of torture, the official added.
Jews gathered at the synagogue recounted their memories of Chabad House and remembered the couple fondly.
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Israel's ambassador to India, Mark Sofer, declared: "This is not the time to ask why the world did not do enough to work against the bestial behavior of people and to ask why these two countries, India and Israel, suffer so much from terror. But we, the Israelis and the Indians and the civilized world, will not stop until we are victorious over terror."
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"I can't think of people who were better messengers of God. They had goodness all over them," said Jennifer Gammell, a British citizen who had known the rabbi for more than two years.
"Every night, they would serve kosher dinner for anyone. No-one ever felt like a stranger in that house."
The couple were "loved so much here in the community that no one was left untouched by their hospitality and their warmth", ambassador Sofer told mourners.
The community also heaped praise on Sandra Samuel.
"If she was here today, Moshe would not be crying," said UK-based Diana Iny, who was visiting her brother in Mumbai.
Women wept when the chubby Moshe was brought into the synagogue by the Chabad House caretaker Zakir Hussein and reached out to touch him.
The little boy played for a while with a red plastic ball, hurling it at television cameras, before he started asking for his parents.
"After this incident, people's faith was down a bit but the Chabad people have so much faith that they are not afraid. They say they know what God is doing," India-born Iny said.
"The Chabad House has to be rebuilt. There is no question about it."
