My interview in Mumbai with Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg

In the past couple of weeks since the tragedy in Mumbai, I have read many accounts of what happened at the Chabad House.

I, like many, was horrified by the murder of the young couple running the Chabad House. But it took a Republican Jewish Coalition newsletter to remind me that I once sat in that now infamous building.

A picture they used to illustrate one of the items on their newsletter “Silence=Acceptance” was actually a photo I took of the outside of the Chabad House in Mumbai. Thinking the photo looked vaguely familiar, I searched for it on the internet and found it with an article I wrote during a trip to India with my religion writing class from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

While in Mumbai, I wrote about the flood of Israelis who visit India after their army service and I sought out the Chabad House as the natural place to find and interview such Israelis.

There, I