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Boundless love in the face of baseless hate
Published: Wednesday, December 3rd, 2008
Close to 200 innocent victims lost their lives to a vicious terrorist attack one week ago. Among those victims was a friend of mine, Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, who directed the Chabad House of Mumbai with his wife Rivka.
The Holtzbergs ...
(back to the article)
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"the Jews were killed specifically because they were Jews"
Do you have some, you know, *evidence* for this?
Re: "anon"
The terrorists just happened to walk into a nondescript Chabad House in addition to their other high profile targets without knowing what it was? Be realistic.
Beautiful article, Rabbi.
the jews were killed because they are sociological jews in the middle east, not because they are "jews" in the broadest sense, or jews for their judaism. the point is that they are not being targeted for their judaism. what does this mean?
"the Jews were killed specifically because they were Jews" -I would say that the truth of the statement is self-evident. The contrast between small Chabad community center and historically famous hotel is apparent. There is no logic in attacking the community center in that it possessed little value to the overall Indian populace like the Taj Hotel is. Several articles have described how the attackers intended to specifically target both Jews and Israelis (who were known to frequent the Chabad house on occasion.) Additionally several victims, including Rabbi Holtzberg, appeared to have been tortured prior to their execution - indicating some distinction between them and the other victims. Finally, it seems odd to nitpick this detail when it has no overall effect on the beautiful message of the article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/01/jews-t...
Also re: "anon"
Your complete ignorance and utter lack of understanding is shocking. The Chabad House was a target - it was a known location and was located in the heart of Mumbai in a 5 story building. The terrorists savagely raided the building knowing full well that dozens of Jews gathered there on a daily basis. For evidence, you should start paying attention to history and world news - this is a common theme and has happened many times before.
Thinking such as yours is the last that the world needs right now. Do something good instead of wasting your precious time making an inflammatory and ignorant comment such as that.
"Do something good instead of wasting your precious time making an inflammatory and ignorant comment such as that."
Requesting EVIDENCE is now considered "inflammatory" and "ignorant"? Requesting EVIDENCE is now considered "hate speech"? There's absolutely no chance they were killed just because some jerks felt like killing them.
"Thinking such as yours is the last that the world needs right now"
Oh right, the "world". So requesting evidence is "anti-world". Lock me up.
"the Jews were killed specifically because they were Jews"
Even if true, what does that mean anyway? It's ok to perform terrorist acts on random groups of people? It's "worse" when members of certain groups are specifically targeted?
Re: "P '09"
Chabad was not attacked because tehy are "sociological jews in the middle east." If the terrorists wanted to make a statement about Israel they could have attacked the Israeli consulate.
Attacking a synagogue is an attack on Jewish religious identity and Judaism. This is why it is significant. It reveals that the motive behind the attacks was not politics but real hatred.
If one would read the article carefully, preceding the Jews killed by Jews segment is a segment discussing Indians killed by Indians. Two ideas must be discussed. First, the Rabbi is not implying that the death of one innocent over another is more or less tragic, but rather, is implying that to a degree the attacks were random, but the intention was to target swaths from specific groups for specific reasons. Random death is tragedy enough but targeting specific groups results in a different bread of suffering. Perhaps it casts aspersion on the group identity of the victims. It is no secret that there is widespread animosity between Indians and Pakistanis. Furthermore, what began as fervent anti-Zionist sentiment has seemingly evolved into blatant anti-Semitic animosity. Elf is correct in noticing the distinction between a Chabad House and the Israeli Consulate. The attack indeed specifically targeted a center of Jewish religion in Mumbai. A religious man lost a very dear friend in the attacks. When your fellow Jew/Indian/American/Briton/etc. is killed in an attack, due to the nature of how we define ourselves, our concern drifts to those most like us, the groups we relate to with the most primacy. Allow Rabbi Webb to express himself and to grieve without turning this comments board in to a means to stir pointless angst. Evidence was provided and if you wish to further address the matter, perhaps you might consider writing an op-ed piece about it. Until then stop sullying the message of this article with your poisonous and distracting ire.
Correction: Replace by with because they were