The Chabad House, which is located at 2701 N. Charles St., represents the minority group under attack.

Mumbai terrorist attacks hit close to home at Hopkins

By: Thomas Danner

Posted: 12/4/08

Last week's terrorist attacks in Mumbai shocked and horrified the world. Much of the Hopkins community was likewise stunned, including students with friends and family in India, members of the Jewish community and the University's Chabad House.

Siddharth Talapatra, a Hopkins graduate student and member of the Indian Graduate Students Association (IGSA)'s Advisory Board, expressed his fears following the attacks.

"Every time there's an attack, you frantically call home just to find out if your friends and your family are alive," he said.

For Talapatra, the attacks hit very close to home.

"I know at least one person [who] died due to the shooting. He was engaged to be married. It's really a sad thing, so many people have died," he said. "It's just so unnecessary and pointless."

The IGSA will be hosting a candlelight vigil in front of the MSE library on Friday at 6 p.m. to commemorate those who lost their lives in the attacks.

While the attacks were devastating for all, the murder of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, leaders of the Chabad House in Mumbai, had a particularly strong effect upon the Jewish community.

Rabbi Zev Gopin, co-director of the Hopkins Chabad House described the strong sense of unity among the Chabad community and their shared grieving for the loss of Rabbi Holtzberg and his wife.

"We all feel like brothers and sisters in what we're doing, and we have taken this pain personally into the depths of our hearts," Gopin said.

Rahul D'Mello, Hopkins senior and president of South Asian Students at Hopkins (SASH), grew up in Mumbai. His entire family lives there, and the train station that his uncle travels through on the way to work was one of the terrorists' targets.

"I think everybody's shaken up because even though you hear about terrorist attacks, it's never really places that you're familiar with. But these are landmarks. Whenever we go visit India, we visit the Taj hotel," he said. "It's frightening that people would be so merciless."

D'Mello noted the uncertainty experienced in the hours following the attacks.

"Since the attacks actually happened at night, nobody really knew about them over there until the next morning," he said. "We knew more about what was going on with the attacks here than they did over there."

Chandni Choiphramani, a Hopkins freshman, has family in India. The tragedy affected many of her friends very profoundly.

"I have friends in India who had parents, uncles and aunts who were eating in the hotel and were shot," she said. "Knowing that innocent people have been killed - it's really sad."

Many members of the Chabad community have already shown their resolve by committing themselves to replace the Holtzbergs at the Chabad House in Mumbai.

Last night, the University's Chabad House held a video presentation commemorating the legacy of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg. Many Hopkins students and members of the Chabad community attended to honor the Holtzberg's sacrifice.

Chabad homes exist around the world and are usually run by young Hasidic couples. Gopin and his wife Channi described the homes' purpose.

"They provide both spiritual and material support to the communities that they serve," Gopin said. "They are homes of goodness and kindness, where someone is there with an open heart and a smile to greet and to help everyone with whatever needs they may have."

The couples that run Chabad Houses often make great sacrifices to do so, choosing to live in areas where they are isolated from the Jewish community in order to fulfill their calling.

The Holtzbergs moved to Mumbai in 2003. The couple served tens of thousands of people from the Jewish community who stayed at their home.

"Their sole objective is to commit themselves, even to far-fledged corners of the world … for one simple reason: to help other people," Gopin said.

The Chabad House that the terrorists attacked was on a side street, not in the main plaza area. Rabbi Gopin emphasized that the attack was a deliberate and targeted strike against Jews.

"The forces of good and evil met in that Chabad House," Gopin said. "It represented two different extremes of two different types of people: on one side, animalistic instincts at the lowest levels; on the other, two wonderful people who had just one sole purpose: to seek goodness, kindness and to help others."

After three anxious days of waiting without any news, all six hostages inside the Chabad House were found murdered, including the Holtzberg couple. Rivkah Holtzberg was five months pregnant.

The only two survivors from the attack were the Holtzberg's two-year-old son, Moshe, and the nanny, Sandra Samuel, who rescued him.

Rabbi Gopin emphasized that the attacks will only strengthen the Chabad community's resolve to do good deeds and to serve Jews around the world.

Similarly, IGSA is also resolved to draw something positive out of the calamity.

The group is assembling a memorandum of changes that they want to see implemented in India. The memorandum will be displayed at Friday's vigil. In concert with several other colleges, they will combine the memorandums into one and send it to the Indian media and government.

Talapatra pointed out that the memorandum provided a medium for students to change some of their feelings of anger or helplessness into positive action.

"I think at this time there's a lot of anger about what has happened and about the absolute lack of action that we've received so far," he said. "I know it might sound feeble and ineffective, but it's a start to get people mobilized so that we stop talking about things and start trying to do something about them."

Talapatra hoped that the students' efforts would help to catalyze genuine change.

"That's how democracy works: You keep putting pressure on the authorities and you don't let them forget," he said. "As soon as you forget, they'll forget, and that's it."

The Chabad movement has taken a similar attitude in its response to the tragedy.

"We know one thing," Gopin said in a solemn tone. "There's only one way to counter such evil, and that is to bring even more goodness to this world. That's what Chabad's response is, and that's what it will be."