Not just any third birthday

November 19, 2009 - 9:44 AM by David

habad mumbai One of the most quickly forgotten aspects following any terror attack is the survivors. We all mourn the victims, obsess about the perpetrators, and move on, as those left behind attempt to pick up the pieces of their lives.

Three-year-old Moishe Holzberg has proven to be the exception. A year ago, Moishe’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel Holzberg, 29, and his wife Rivka, 28, were killed along with 170 other victims when Pakistani Islamic terrorists carried out a series of attacks in Mumbai in India. The Holzbergs, who had lived in Mumbai for six years as official emissaries of the Chabad movement were killed with seven other people at Chabad House.

The two-year-old life of Moishe was saved when he was spirited away from the attack by his Indian nanny Sandra Samuel. He’s been raised at Kfar Chabad near Tel Aviv by his grandparents for the last year. And on Wednesday, the community hosted a memorial ceremony for the couple, which was attended by 2,000 people. During the event, Moishe celebrated his first haircut, a coming-of-age event for three-year-old boys, known as an “upshirin” in Yiddish or “chalaka” in Hebrew.

“Moshe may be without biological parents, but the entire Chabad family has adopted him,” the head of the Chabad Youth Organization in Israel, Rabbi Yosef Aharonov, told The Jerusalem Post which attended the event.

Across a blue-grey curtain on the wall of the womens’ section of the tent, dozens of blue and white balloons spelled out “Moishe, three years old.” Moishe himself was carried in by Sandra shortly before the beginning of the event, and stood before a gaggle of reporters and cameras, calmly, even lazily, taking in the spectacle.

Rabbi Holzberg’s father, Rabbi Nachman Holzberg, said that the outpouring of support for his family has been tremendous over the past year, and that Moishe was doing very well. Holzberg also expressed his hope that the tragedy “will only bring the entire world closer to redemption.”

Samuel, surrounded by a sea of reporters and swarmed by well-wishers from the moment she entered with Moishe, said that she was feeling a mix of emotions at the event, both great happiness that Moishe was doing well and sadness at the fact that his parents could not be with him.

Samuel said that “the baby is fine, he’s a normal kid, he plays, he jumps.”

With a mixture of sadness and joy, which, after all, is a regular recipe in Israel, the shortened lives of the Holzbergs and the hopefully long life of their son Moishe was celebrated in the only way Israeli know how – with all their hearts.

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