Mumbai Mourns Slain Rabbi, Wife

Two-year-old Moshe Holtzberg, with grandparents Yehodit and Shimon Rosenberg by his side, has been left orphaned. (By Uriel Sinai -- Getty Images)

Lauifer's lifelong dream was to return to Mumbai to retrace his memories. But moments after his plane landed last week, Israeli officials met him at the airport, warning him about the attacks.

The Holtzbergs had been fixtures of Mumbai's small Jewish community. They had come to the city after stints in Israel and New York.

"I lost my friend," said a weeping Reema Sisodia, an Indian Jew, adding that she went to a mikvah, a ritual bath, with Rivkah Holtzberg on the Sunday before the attacks. A few weeks before, Rivkah Holtzberg had given her a mezuza, a piece of parchment affixed to the door frame of Jewish homes. "When I saw her last, she was happy," Sisodia said. "They were planning a big Friday dinner. People like her should not have to die like that. It is high time the world wakes up and takes notice."

Although some Israeli officials have criticized India's handling of the siege, the prayer service Monday was a moment of bonding between the countries.

The mourners praised Sandra Samuel, the Indian nanny who rescued Moshe. She found him crying beside his parents' bodies, his pants drenched in blood.

During the siege of the Jewish center, Samuel had locked herself in a laundry room. As soon as she heard Rivkah Holtzberg screaming "Sandra, help!," family friends said, she bounded up one flight of stairs -- only to see the bodies of the rabbi and his wife; they had been shot. She picked up Moshe and ran out of the building before the attackers noticed she was gone.

After the service, Samuel left for Israel with Moshe on an Israeli military aircraft. Some at the service said Samuel should get a hero's welcome in Israel.

"She was an angel, and Moshe loves her," said Levi Jurkowicz, 25, whose sister and brother-in-law work at a Chabad center in Goa.

Jurkowicz, like many at the memorial service, seemed eager to resurrect Mumbai's Chabad House, also known as Nariman House. He had spent the past few days cooking kosher meals for dozens of Israelis who had arrived to mourn and help prepare the bodies.

"We want to rebuild it, stone by stone, exactly the way it was in their memory," he said. "That would be the best way to fight the terrorists."

In the meantime, the temporary Chabad House is in an undisclosed location.

Staff writers Joby Warrick and Karen DeYoung and staff researcher Robert E. Thomason, all in Washington, contributed to this report.