By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin of Chabad of Greater Dayton remembers the Holtzbergs at Chabad’s memorial program for the victims of terror in Mumbai

A standing-room crowd gathered at Chabad of Greater Dayton in Oakwood on the evening of Dec. 2 in memory of the more than 170 people killed in Mumbai during the terror attacks of Nov. 26-29.

Among those killed were Rabbi Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg of Mumbai’s Nariman Chabad House, and four guests at the facility.

Upon arriving at the memorial program, participants were invited to light a candle: one set for each of the Mumbai terror victims.

“In the face of darkness, let us kindle light,” said Chabad of Greater Dayton Director Rabbi Nochum Mangel. “Instead of succumbing to the sphere of darkness, as is the plan of the masters of terror, we double and redouble our dedication to goodness and joy.”

Mangel paid special tribute to the rescuer of the Holtzberg’s 2-year-old son, Moshe.

“Let us find the resolve to overcome the pain from the example of Sandra Samuel, the nanny who risked her own life and rose above every selfish thought to save little Moishele,” Mangel said. “Such a committed and dedicated love shines through any darkness.”

Chabad of Greater Dayton’s Rabbi Shmuel Klatzkin, whose kosher supervision consulting brought him to the Holtzbergs in Mumbai last summer, was scheduled to visit them again on Dec. 5. During the memorial, he said his memories of the couple were brief but wonderful.

“He was the kind of man and his wife was the kind of woman who were happy bringing people together: people from all walks of life,” Klatzkin said.

Klatzkin urged those present to cherish the value of coming together as a community, of breaking down the boundaries that keep people apart, as modeled by the slain couple.

“Let nothing get in its way,” he said. “It’s the only hope for a world that is suffering and the barriers that are put in the way…that stop us from seeing first and foremost another human being, someone made in God’s image.”