Diplomacy

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WATCH: Netanyahu, Boy Who Survived Mumbai Terror Attack, Dedicate Memorial to Victims

Eleven-year-old Moshe Holtzberg, the survivor of a 2008 terror attack in Mumbai, which claimed the lives of his parents, accompanied Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his historic trip to India, and was on hand as a memorial was dedicated to the victims of the attack, The Times of Israel reported Thursday.

During his historic trip to Israel last year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had met the young Holtzberg, whose parents, Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, were among the 166 murdered in the the four day assault.

A “living memorial” to Holtzberg’s parents was unveiled at the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai.

“I am returning home. I am returning to where I was nine years ago,” Moshe Holtzberg said. Though the building still showed the damage from the attack by Pakistani terrorists, he called his return “festive,” and thanked God for his rescue. Moshe’s nanny, Sandra Samuel had rescued him by carrying him out of the house. Both Moshe and Samuel live with the boy’s maternal grandparents in Israel.

The boy, known as “baby Moshe” by the Indian media, who was returning to Mumbai for the first time since the tragedy, invited Netanyahu to attend his bar-mitzvah, scheduled in two years, in Mumbai.

At the ceremony, Shimon Rosenberg, Moshe’s maternal grandfather pointed out where his daughter and son-in-law were killed, “This is the spot where they were killed, and where Moshe was able to escape from.”

Referring to the rescue of the boy by his nanny, Netanyahu, who is on the last day of his trip to India said, “These terrible killers who unfortunately exacted from us a terrible sacrifice, did not exact from us the price of this child, because of the love of the Jewish people of the amazing woman Sandra.”

According to Rabbi Yosef Kantor, who had appointed the Holtzbergs to serve as emissaries in Mumbai, the upper floors of the building will not be repaired to serve as a reminder of the tragedy and provide “a springboard for growth.”

“Don’t cover the holes. Take the tragedy that shook the world, that gripped the world and make it something that should inspire the world. Turn it into a building that will be a source of light for the world,” he explained later in a speech.

[Photo: IsraeliPM / YouTube ]