Sandra Samuel and Moshe Holtzberg escape from Chabad House in Mumbai
An EU-Digest editorial on the dramatic events at the Rohr Chabad House in Mumbai
Sandra Samuel and Moshe Holtzberg - The Mumbai Miracle: God lives in all
Last Thursday, as the world watched the horrors unfolding in Mumbai, many of us saw Moshe Holzberg being carried out of the Rohr Chabad House by Sandra Samuel (44), an Indian nanny who had worked at the Jewish community center for years. She had found Moshe crying beside his parents’ bodies, drenched in blood. The parents, his mother Rivkah Holtzberg, 28, was an Israeli citizen, while his father, Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, had dual American and Israeli citizenship. They had come to Mumbai in August 2003 to operate a home for the Jewish community, where travelers could get a kosher meal, attend Shabbat services, and relax in a library filled with a variety of works, including many books even some by Woody Allen and manuscripts on Jewish philosophy.
Last week their lives on earth abruptly ended, when they were executed in their home by a highly trained, tightly knit, and well-financed, ruthless group of Islamic militants.
When the attack on the Rorh Chabad House began last Wednesday, Sandra Samuel heard explosions and gunshots on an upper floor of the center and locked herself and fellow employee Zaki Hussein in a downstairs utility room. Late Thursday morning, she heard Moshe screaming, ran upstairs, eluded roaming gunmen, even stared some of them down, and found the child beside the bodies of his parents, carried him downstairs, and brought Moshe to safety. Mr. Hussein helped Ms. Samuel conceal Moshe, as the three escaped from Rorh Chabad House.
Sandra Samuel now continues to help care for Moshe Holtzberg in Israel. Her emigration from India was expedited when the Israeli government declared her one of the “Righteous Among the Nations” and issued her an immigration permit. Recipients of this honor, awarded by a special commission headed by a Supreme Court Justice in Israel, include Oskar and Emilie Schindler, Raoul Wallenberg, and Corrie ten Boom. People and groups that receive this title, have risked their lives to save others, many during the Holocaust. Sandra Samuel is the first citizen of India to receive this honor.
As dramatic as this report may sound, it underscores the fact that God does not belong to any religion, but that he lives in all of us. Moshe Holtzberg and Sandra Samuel are a living proof of that, and as difficult as this is to say, also in those militants, who decided not to kill Moshe, after they killed his parents.
5 comments:
Sandra Samuel is a very brave woman, she risked her life to save Moshe, and it is only right she is awarded as "Rightious among the Gentiles," it is probably for the best that she goes to Israel for sadly she will never be safe in India for there will be those who will condemn her for daring to save a Jewish child. Israel I hope will protect her, because without her Moshe more than likely would not be alive today.
Suchi
Whatever may happen in other nations of the world, In India, a Jew shall never be discriminated as long as the Hindus are in a majority and in a decisive manner able to influence the polity. It is contrary to the principles of our Dharma to harm any civilian not engaged in armed combat.
India is the only country in the world wherein Jews have not been persecuted for being Jews
(A proud Hindu)
India can be proud about its tradition of religious tolerance. Other countries where this is applied in one way or the other include all EU nations, the USA, all Latin American Countries, all Caribbean nations, Iceland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Russia, Japan, Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Turkey, Lebanon, Egypt and most Island States in the Pacific Ocean. If I missed some my apologies. What might be a better thing to do is to single out those States who do not apply a policy of freedom of religious expression.
There is no god or gods. What Sandra Samuel did was simply the result of love and extraordinary courage. The kind of courage a mother has for her own child, even though this toddler was not "her own."
There is absolutely no doubt that Samuel was in danger of being shot in the back. Many other victims were. She knew that. She had seen what the murderers did to her employers.
Words cannot fulfill the complete selflessness of her act. If she wishes she should be given permission to live in any Democratic country of her choice.
Her name will be enshrined in the Avenue of the Righteous.
Let her bravery mock the executioners of hate.
sanjosemike
For Anonymous who does not believe in God the following might help - "But when he had turned about and looked at his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, "get behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men." Mark 8. verse 33.
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