Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzburg Slain in Mumbai

[Matt]

Sacramento Friends Remember Rabbi Slain in Mumbai. Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzburg was only 29 years old, but a man well known in the worldwide Jewish community. Many here in Sacramento called him a friend.

The New York couple who recognized the threat of terrorism in India but believed their mission of spreading Jewish pride was greater than the potential danger were slain in a series of attacks across Mumbai that have killed at least five Americans. Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, 28, died in the attack on the ultra-Orthodox Chabad-Lubavitch movement's center in Mumbai. Elite commandos who stormed the center found six hostages dead.

"I looked up to him. He was a role model and a friend to all who met him," said Rabbi Yossi Grossbaum of Chabad of Folsom. Grossbaum said Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife left New York to minister to India's small Jewish polulation through Chabad, a Jewish outreach program promoting love and harmony "It's a twisted irony that terrorists targeted a center of peace," Grossbaum said. Chabad of the greater Sacramento region will be holding a special memorial prayer service for Holtzberg at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Chabad of Sacramento temple at 945 Evelyn Lane.