Mumbai:
Moshe, one of the youngest 26/11 survivors, has turned four. "He was too young to remember," said his grandfather Nachman Holtzberg.
"We want to ensure that he does not get traumatised at this young age. The attack and what happened to his parents was too horrific, details of it can wait till he has grown up and is mature to understand and cope with it."
Israel, he said, has specialised experts in paediatric post-traumatic stress disorder given the number of attacks it has faced. "They advised us not to tell Moshe details of the incident."
Moshe asks for his eema and abi (mother and father) and wants to know where they are, he said. "Every morning he says good morning to the photos of his parents. We tell him they are with God."
The child is being raised in the path of his parents, as an orthodox Jew by a community, which has adopted him. "The best revenge, the community feels, will be the day Moshe comes back to Mumbai and takes over his father's job as a Rabbi," he said.
Nachman and his wife Freida Holtzberg are in Mumbai for a prayer service in memory of the 26/11 victims. They are also in the city to enquire about the reconstruction of Nariman House, which is mired in dispute.
Chabad Lubavitch, which runs the centre, wants the building dedicated to Gavriel and Rivka and other terror victims with a synagogue and a hall.
The Holtzberg family trust wants Nariman House to be an innovative Jewish education centre for children, with Moshe's room preserved as it is. Freida denied that there was any monetary dispute. "This is not about funds but principles. Chabad wants Nariman House to be a memorial, but we think memorials are just that. We want it to be of service to the community."
Moshe was three days short of his second birthday when the 26/11 attack orphaned him. His Indian nanny Sandra rescued him by hoodwinking the terrorists and running out of the Jewish centre.
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