Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Orphaned Son of Mumbai Terror Victims Leads Chabad Prayers

Moshe Holtzberg, the orphaned son of the Chabad House directors in Mumbai, India, killed by terrorists in 2008, was scheduled to lead thousands of Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries in the recitation of psalms.

Moshe, who is nearly 9 and lives with his grandparents in Afula, Israel, was scheduled to lead the recitation on Sunday night in New York at a gala dinner concluding a week of programming as part of the annual International Conference of Chabad-Lubavitch Emissaries.

Moshe’s nanny, Sandra Samuels, escaped from the Nariman Chabad House carrying 2-year-old Moshe in November 2008 after it came under siege. Four other Jewish victims were killed, including Moshe’s parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg.

The attacks on several Mumbai sites over four days by an Islamist Pakistani group, including two hotels and the train station, left 166 dead and hundreds injured.

Samuels was given permanent residency status in Israel to be with Moshe after the attack.

“He is said to be a happy, healthy boy,” according to Chabad.org.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.