It seems the fallout from Mumbai will keep falling like snow throughout this season of celebration and good will. While Linda Grant is able to report the safe return of her friend’s son and his girlfriend (I say “safe” meaning the young man is now in a London hospital with a long recovery in front of him) – though with dark hints of distressing news to follow - my online friend The Shaigetz of Stamford Hill is very sad. And he’s angry.
Writing of what happened in the Lubavitch Chabad Centre in Mumbai, where 29-year-old Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his 28-year-old pregnant wife Rivka were killed along with four others, he says:
“The kindest of hearts, the most endearing smile, the most attentive ear even the most helping of hands, stand no chance when up against the cutting edge of fanatical evil. It cannot be easy to torture, kill and mutilate a pregnant woman and a grandmother, scholars and rabbis, kind and gentle people who had dedicated their lives to spreading goodness and love to everyone they met, but they soldiered on the brave warriors of Allah the Merciful, and from their point of view they were victorious.”
Of the Lubavitchers themselves, he says:
“Like any religious Jew who travels I have basked in Chabad’s hospitality and kindness. I admit, to my shame, that like many of my Central European Chassidic friends I used to treat them with a little disdain; their wide fedora hats symbolising for us slightly wacky cousins who sometimes embarrass us a little with their exuberant religiosity. They often acknowledge it good-naturedly. However, after spending some time with them in their cultural oases I have been humbled by the true aestheticism of these young families and more by their utter assurance that spreading God’s love to lost Jews and making a kiddush Hashem is the real answer to all the problems of the world…”
I did read up on it after reading his post. It’s just terrible; these were utterly sweet people, an idealistic young couple from New York, with a toddler – who at the very least witnessed much of the attack before being miraculously rescued by his nanny, and who is now with his grandparents in Israel. They worked hard and cheerfully for five years in Mumbai, holding dinners and prayers, putting up travellers, even buying, slaughtering and distributing 200 chickens every week to help local Jews keep kosher. There are conflicting reports as to whether or not they were tortured, with one doctor saying there were “extensive” signs and another saying, days later, not. May their memory be a blessing.
The Shaigetz notes that:
“It is a cruel irony that the main grievance of those who had directed and ordered this butchery – objection to the crusade-like export of the miniskirt and fruit flavoured condoms under the guise of democracy – is one they share with the Chassidim.”
Irony, however, cannot be much of a comfort. I’m sorry it was something like this that brought the Shaigetz out of hiding.
