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| Tuesday, Dec 2 '08, Kislev 5, 5769 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1. Teary-Eyed Holtzberg Funerals by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Thousands of mourners jammed Kfar Chabad Tuesday and heard leading rabbis and President Shimon Peres eulogize Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, two of the six Israelis murdered by Muslim terrorists in the Mumbai massacre last week. Chabad-Lubavitch Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky vowed that the Mumbai Chabad center will be re-named after the couple, whose two-year-old son Moshe was saved by their nanny when she snatched him and fled the terrorist-infested building. "You don't have a mother who will hug you and kiss you." He cried. "You are the child of all of Israel." He told Chabad emissaries. "This is not a time to think or ask questions but for action. The answer to terror will not be given with tanks and grenades. Such cruelty can only be fought against by spreading light." President Peres told the crowd that terror is a "plague that is difficult to stop" and that the world must unite to defeat it. Leaders of the Labor, Shas and Likud parties were present, and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was out of the country. Outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was not present. Former Chief Rabbi of Israel Yisrael Meir Lau, now Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, and the current Ashkenazic and Sephardic chief rabbis also eulogized the slain couple. Following the eulogies, the funeral procession departed for the Mount of Olives cemetery in Jerusalem, where Rabbi and Rivka Holtzberg will be buried. Earlier, Chabad House victims Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum and Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich were interred at Jerusalem cemeteries, and Ben Tzion Kruman was buried in Bat Yam. The sixth victim, Yocheved Orpaz, was interred at the Yarkon cemetery in Tel Aviv. Comment on this story 2. Mumbai Chabad Tribute Page   The entire Jewish world and its friends amongst the nations stand together in shock over the horrific massacre of six Jews in the Chabad House in Mumbai, India. This page is a tribute to the slain couple that founded and directed the Mumbai Chabad House, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, of blessed memory. In the words of Rabbi Gavriel's direct superior in the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky: "He was the finest and nicest gentleman that you can imagine. Never saw him without a smile. In the most trying of times, he was always cheerful. He greeted everyone pleasantly, and the reports that we always heard from around the world were of him being a real mentch [a warm individual of sterling characte. He was a very very special person, him and his wife." More features and information will be added to this page daily. Please send your story and/or pics of a personal encounter with Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg to: chabad-tribute@IsraelNationalNews.com We will publish your full name and place of residence [not emai unless otherwise noted. Pictures Rabbi Gavriel (29-yrs) and Rivka (28-yrs) Holtzberg Photo: Chabad.org Rivka cuts ribbon at new mikva (ritual pool) in Mumbai photo: Chabad.org A guest dons tefillin to recite the Shema prayer at Mumbai Chabad House Photo: Chabad.org More photos of Mumbai Chabad activities and related Photos from inside the Mumbai Chabad House after the massacre [warning: graphic photo Recent News Stories Torah Answers Mumbai Bullets - The verse in the Torah that was pierced by terrorist bullets in the Mumbai massacre speaks of the death of the high priest Aaron's two sons Ceremony Held for India Terror Victims - A ceremony took place Monday in the Knesset Eliyahu Synagogue in Mumbai for the Jewish victims of the Mumbai terror attack Chabad House Victim Was Slated to Make Aliyah Tuesday - The Mexican citizen killed in the Chabad House massacre had planned to immigrate to Israel on Tuesday. Her grieving son learns in Bnei Brak. Holtzberg Family, Victims' Bodies En Route to Israel - Rivka Holtzberg's parents boarded a plane Monday with the bodies of the six victims of the Mumbai massacre, including their daughter. Doctors: Terrorist Torture of Jewish Victims 'Beyond Words' - Doctors said that Muslim terrorists tortured Jewish victims before killing them. A picture of the revered Chabad movement's Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was unharmed. Photos of Mumbai Chabad House Massacre -Warning: Graphic Content - Images inside the Mumbai Chabad House after the Nov. 26 massacre. Warning: Some of the photos contained on this page are explicit and graphic. Videos In the video below, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, of blessed memory, talks about the history of the Mumbai Chabad House which he founded 5 years ago. The Chabad movement offers a response to the horrific massacre in the video below. Translating fury into actio (Courtesy of FridayLight.org ) In the clip below, IsraelNN speaks with Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesman Lior Chayat as he boards the plane in Mumbai to return to Israel with the bodies of the slain martyrs. More videos... Comment on this story  3. Mourner Pleads for Peace House by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  Rabbi Nachman Holtzberg, whose son Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg was murdered along with his wife Rivka in the Mumbai terrorist attacks, sent an urgent letter to outgoing Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday in a plea to stop plans to expel the Jewish residents of the Hevron Peace House. "At the same time we are mourning for our dear children…who merited in their lives and in their deaths to bring wonderful unity to the People of Israel and to bring everyone closer in love and truth, and who were sacrificed on the holy altar of the Almighty before the eyes of every nation, …we plead in every way possible that you not carry out any action that will polarize and cause a schism to the People of Israel, that would cause in the time of mourning of all the People of Israel. "We hope you will take into consideration the feelings of the family and the public." The grieving father also took the opportunity to thank the Israeli government for its help in identifying the bodies of the Jewish victims of the Mumbai attacks and in bringing them to Israel for burial. The office of the Prime Minister confirmed that it had received the letter, which was written in Hebrew. The Olmert government has ordered the expulsion of more than 20 permanent families and hundreds of supporters who have crowded into the building since the High Court ruled that authorities have the legal option of expelling the Jews until a civil court determines the issue of ownership. Arabs claim that purchase of the structure by Jews was forged. However, government officials, including ministers, and several media sources incorrectly disseminated news that the court had ordered the expulsion of the Jewish residents. Defense Minister Ehud Barak met with Hevron Jewish leaders this week in an effort to calm the rage that has followed the government actions. Altercations between Jews and Arabs again broke out Monday night. Jewish youths said a Jewish man was attacked by Arabs and required medical care. Police failed to protect him or to detain his attackers, they said. Comment on this story 4. Feiglin's Immigrant Candidates by Hillel Fendel  The 21st and 30th slots on the Likud list of Knesset candidates, both of which are considered to have realistic chances in the upcoming national elections, are reserved for new immigrants. Eleven Likud members, including two from the Jewish Leadership faction, are running. Meanwhile, the Likud court has ruled in favor of Jewish Leadership and against Binyamin Netanyahu, banning any changes in the way primaries will be held unless the Central Committee approves them (see below). Founded by Oslo-protests leader Moshe Feiglin in the mid-90’s, Jewish Leadership became a faction within the Likud Party in the year 2000. Feiglin has long explained that the road to national leadership, for which he says the faith-based religious-Zionist camp must strive, runs through a large, national party such as the Likud. He believes that small, sectarian parties, such as the National Religious Party or the new Jewish Home, will never be able to provide a platform for national leadership. Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu has made no secret of his displeasure at the growing influence within the Likud of Feiglin and his camp. Netanyahu’s successful wooing of nationally accepted centrist figures such as Assaf Cheifetz, Dan Meridor, and Uzi Dayan has been an attempt to give the party a middle-of-the-road hue – something that Feiglin’s presence works against. Netanyahu Warned: Don’t Support Feiglin Netanyahu even sent a message last week, warning his fellow Likud members that he would “view gravely” their participation at an upcoming Feiglin rally. Jewish Leadership members are accusing Netanyahu and other Likud officials of trying to torpedo their chances in next week’s party primaries via a series of “tricks.” These include increasing the number of candidates for whom each member can vote; removing polling stations from areas where Jewish Leadership’s support is great, such as in Judea and Samaria; and separating the balloting for the new immigrant slots from the national vote. Court Rules Against Netanyahu But, the Likud Court ruled on Monday that Netanyahu's proposal to separate the balloting for the new immigrants would decrease the Jewish Leadership candidates’ chances and therefore cannot be made without the approval of the 3,000-member Likud Central Committee. Netanyahu is therefore likely to forego proposing the change. Two Immigrant Candidates The two Jewish Leadership candidates for the new immigrants’ slots are Shmuel Sackett and Asya Antov. Antov, married and mother of three children, has an M.A. in mathematics and political science, immigrated from Russia in 1991, and lives in Karnei Shomron. She writes regularly for the Russian-language press in Israel, manages an internet portal in Russian for the Jewish nationalist sector, and is very active within the Russian immigrant community. Antov has been involved with Feiglin ever since his Zo Artzein (This is Our Land) anti-Oslo protests, and has also run many Likud party Russian-language activities, such as the “Russian Speaking Likud Loyalists” forum. Jewish Leadership claims polls showing her inclusion on the Likud Knesset list will significantly increase the number of votes for the Likud in the national elections. Shmuel Sackett, 47, made Aliyah from New York in 1990. Married and father of six, he co-founded, with Feiglin, the Zo Artzeinu protest movement – the largest anti-Oslo Accords movement in Israel. The only native English speaker running for a “new immigrant” spot, Sackett is said by Jewish Leadership to be “a dedicated ideologue and also a pleasant and sociable person, with a sense of humor and natural charisma. The inclusion of people like him with a clear ideology will increase the voters’ trust in the party. People who don’t take the time to go out and vote because ‘they’re all the same’ will take the time to vote for the Likud if they know that its list contains idealistic and loyal people like him, who will work to ensure that the Likud does not act like a pale imitation of the left.” Ze'ev Elkin Another of the 11 candidates for the new immigrant slot is current Knesset Member Ze’ev Elkin of Gush Etzion, who recently left the Kadima Party. Elkin said Kadima had become too left-wing for him. Candidates running for a specific slot do not forfeit their chance to be placed even higher on the list, if their vote total warrants it. Want to make your voice heard? Speak out on the new Israel Elections and Politics Forum. Comment on this story  5. PM Takes from Yesha for Negev by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu  The IDF has said that it intends to take away 14 security positions in Judea and Samaria in order to finance outgoing Prime Minister Olmert's proposal to complete reinforcement of Gaza Belt communities against rocket attacks. National Union Knesset Member Uri Ariel said he fears that Yesha residents may have to pay the price of life. "This is not just or smart and does not contribute to security," he responded. "Do not cut funds to those who are always are on the frontlines and are liable to pay the price…with their lives." Pinchas Wallerstein, a director of The Council of Jewish Communities in Judea and Samaria, accused the government of abandoning its citizens. "Is our security worth less than those in the Gaza Belt?" he asked. The cuts will leave several regions without roving patrols that prevent thefts and create a deterrent against terrorist infiltrations. The Gaza Belt refers to the communities, mostly kibbutzim and moshavim, near the Gaza area separation barrier. Arab terrorists have pounded the area, along with the nearby town of Sderot, with thousands of rockets and mortar shells since the breakout of the Oslo War in September 2000. The violence escalated following the refusal of then-Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat to accept almost all of Judea and Samaria as proposed by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The government has rejected proposals to retaliate against the attacks with military force and instead has erected an early warning system that allows the civilian population 20 seconds to run to nearby bomb shelters. Olmert and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have warned several times that "it only is matter of time" before the IDF conducts an offensive to stop the attacks. However, Hamas in the meantime has stockpiled advanced weapons and built a Hizbullah-type of underground city of tunnels that the IDF now warns will make an incursion much more costly than it would have been years ago. Instead, Olmert has promised to fortify homes, but the program never was carried out. Following several petitions by Gaza Belt communities to the High Court, he plans to bring it to fruition by asking for approval at the next Cabinet meeting on Sunday, partially funded by reducing security in Judea and Samaria. The government already has approved a fortification plan for homes within nearly three miles of the Gaza separation barrier, but the government wants to extend the range by approximately 700 feet in order to include more kibbutzim that have been under attack. Comment on this story 6. Court Again Pro-Federman by Hillel Fendel  The Magistrates Court in Jerusalem has handed down yet another rejection of a police/Defense Ministry request to ban Hevron activist Noam Federman from his home. The State Prosecution and police asked the courts to have Noam Federman banned from all of Judea and Samaria for the duration of judicial proceedings against him on charges of attacking a policeman. The alleged violence occurred in late October, when large police and army forces descended on the Federman farm in Kiryat Arba in the middle of the night, woke the sleeping children and forced them out of their home in their pajamas, and then proceeded to destroy the building. The ruins have still not been cleared, and much of the Federmans’ property has still not been recovered (see below). Federman himself was briefly arrested at the time - his wife was arrested the next day - and he was later charged with attacking a policeman during the destruction. Federman denies the charges, saying he was the victim of police violence but did not retaliate. He accused the police of not allowing his family to remove belongings before the home was destroyed, and said that the police had forcibly separated his one-year-old baby from her mother. The Jerusalem Magistrates Court, with Justice Shulamit Dotan presiding, was the first to hear the case. At the time, in late October, she said she would hand down a ruling in early December - but took the opportunity to sharply criticize the police for not giving Federman a copy of their request and indictment. The police appealed the decision, asking that the decision be handed down more quickly than the date Judge Dotan set. The police apparently did not bargain, however, for the sharp rejection of their appeal handed down last week by Justice Moshe Drori of the Jerusalem District Court. Drori ruled that the request to ban Federman from his home and environs was totally unjustified, was in violation of international conventions, and was marked by grave discrimination. Why should a person be banned from living in an entire region of the country merely because of an incident of violence towards policemen in which he was involved, Drori asked. 'How Would You Act?' “Let every person decide for himself how he would act,” Drori wrote, “if a police officer turns to him at 1:30 in the night, ordering him out of his house, with his wife and nine young children sleeping in their beds … The State did not bother to explain why it needed a force of 100 policemen to remove a person from a military zone that had been closed for ten months, with no prior warning or attempt at dialogue… The eviction was not balanced, not reasonable, not right and not appropriate.” No Appeal Yet Surprisingly, Defense Minister Ehud Barak decided not to take the criticism to heart – and ordered the State Prosecution to file an appeal of the ruling in the Supreme Court. As of five days later, no such appeal has yet been filed. Federman, for his part, said after the District Court ruling that he plans to turn to the International War Crimes court and sue all those who were involved in the “pogrom” against his home and family. Meanwhile, the original judge, Justice Dotan of the Magistrates Court, handed down her final ruling on Monday morning. She wrote that after examining the evidence, she found that the policemen contradicted each other and themselves, and that the case appears headed for an acquittal. She also implied that a person brutally woken up at 1:30 in the morning for the purpose of having his house destroyed should be given some leeway in his response. Federman Keeps Even Temper Federman is currently living, with some of his older children, in a tent at the site of his farm – in keeping with Justice Drori’s ruling that the “closed military zone” order slapped down on the site does not apply to the Federmans. “This does not mean that I’m allowed to build,” Federman told IsraelNationalNews. “The demolition order is still in effect. The judge merely criticized the manner in which it was carried out.” “I’m living with what I have,” Federman said simply. “What we don’t have, we do without.” Asked to elaborate, he said, “Tables, cabinets for clothing and other items, beds, laptop computers – those were some of what we saw smashed under the ruins. We had two refrigerators – at least one of them was also broken. Much of the other stuff was either thrown onto army trucks and taken to the Ofer base, or is still under the ruins." "For instance," he said, "five pairs of tefillin [specially written and packed Torah passages, strapped onto the head and arm during prayer according to Biblical law, costing at least $500 each - ed have still not been found." He explained that his sons wear tefillin beginning at age 9, four years earlier than most others, in accordance with a certain approach in Jewish Law. Army Charges Him For Packing Asked what the army plans to do with his belongings, he said, “They wanted me to come and see them, but I demanded that an assessor come as well. The army then suddenly claimed that they had packed it up, and are now charging me 20,000 shekels for ‘packing and transport’… Slightly reminiscent of Sodom, no?” Federman says he would not be surprised if the latest decision, or the previous one by Judge Drori, would be appealed by order of the Defense Ministry. Comment on this story 7. Fresh Jihadist Threats by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz  Less than a week after the deadly terrorist assault in Mumbai, a Chabad House elsewhere in India received a threatening note from Muslim fundamentalists. Terrorism analysts have identified additional threats to Indian targets, as well as to upscale Western hotel chains worldwide. According to a report on Israel TV's Channel 1, the Chabad House in Pune, India, has received a letter threatening to "wipe out the Chabad House and the Jews and Israelis.... The CIA and Mossad will not be able to save you." Although hate mail sent to Jewish institutions is not unusual, the timing has led Israeli security services to recommend heightened alert levels and increased protective measures at the Pune outreach center. A representative of the Prime Minister's Office has met with Chabad leaders to discuss the ongoing threat to Jews in the Indian subcontinent. United Torah Judaism Knesset Member Yaakov Litzman and the Chief Rabbinate have both called upon the Foreign Ministry to provide security for Chabad Houses in the danger zones. In addition to the worldwide network of Chabad Houses providing religious and material assistance to the Jewish communities in their various locales, many of those centers in places like the Far East and South America serve as familiar way-stations for traveling Israeli youths. The ongoing terrorist threat to India, however, is far broader than the Chabad Houses there, of course. Deccan Mujahideen - a terrorist front group that initially claimed responsibility for the Mumbai assault - sent email on Monday saying it is not finished yet and that is next target is Indian air travel. This is in line with jihadist communications, according to analysts from the Israel- and US-based Institute of Terrorism Research and Response (ITRR). The jihadists are circulating three main messages among their supporters, say ITRR researchers: 1) the attacks were part of a larger tactic of striking upscale hotels worldwide, what they are calling the "Hotel War"; 2) more such attacks are on the way; and 3) the jihadists are not finished with India, which is in store for even more shocking terror assaults. Meanwhile, a bomb blast in a train in the northeast Assam state on Tuesday morning killed at least two people and wounded 30. The attack was not believed to be connected to the Mumbai attacks or to the global jihad, as Assam has been facing a local insurgency unrelated to Islamist goals. Comment on this story 
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