Moshe Holtzberg, whose parents were killed in the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai when he was two-years-old, celebrated becoming a bar mitzvah by donning phylacteries for the first time during a ceremony in New York.
Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg were the directors of the Nariman Chabad House in the Indian city when it was attacked on November 26, 2008. Along with the couple, four other Israeli and American visitors to the house were killed.
The Chabad House was among 12 locations targeted in coordinated shooting and bombing attacks by Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic terrorist organization based in Pakistan, that killed 166 people and injured hundreds more in a three-day rampage in Mumbai.
The child was dubbed “Baby Moshe” when a photo of his terrified-looking nanny running from the besieged Chabad House clutching the little boy was splashed on the front pages of newspapers around the world.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meet with Moshe Holtzberg and his nanny Sandra Samuel at the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai, the site of the 2008 terrorist attack that left Moshe’s parents dead, July 5, 2017. (Atef Safadi/AFP/Getty Images/via JTA)
On Tuesday, Moshe celebrated the ceremony of Hanachat Tefillin, or putting on phylacteries for the first time, during a ceremony in Stony Point, New York, surrounded by family and friends of his parents, Crown Heights info reported. He also helped a US Navy SEAL put on tefillin.
Get The Times of Israel's Daily Editionby email and never miss our top stories
He also visited the grave of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, and put on tefillin there, according to the report.
Help us report truthfully on social media
As a multimedia journalist, my job is to take the quality, fact-based journalism produced by The Times of Israel newsroom and make it accessible across every platform — from Instagram posts to podcasts to short-form videos.
This is how many, especially young people, consume news these days. But misinformation is rampant on social media. Our team at ToI produces accurate, responsible short-form reporting on Israel and the Jewish world.
If you believe in the importance of factual social media journalism, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to sustain responsible multimedia reporting.
We’re really pleased that you’ve read X Times of Israel articles in the past month.
That’s why we started the Times of Israel - to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you, David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel
Add ToI as a Preferred Source on Google
