Year after Chabad Mumbai attacks, Jews get used to beefed-up security

Life in Mumbai for the Jewish community has not returned to what it was before a deadly attack on the city's Chabad center just over a year ago, a community leader visiting Israel said last week.

Yael Jirhad, who opened the Indian chapter of the Women's International Zionist Organization exactly one year prior to the November 2008 terror attack, said the community has been forced to cope with increased security measures at Jewish institutions around the large city.

Jirhad, who was attending the WIZO executive meeting in Tel Aviv, said the murder of nine Jews at the center by Pakistani terrorists prompted authorities to post armed police officers around the clock outside all the major institutions which serve Mumbai's 4,000-strong community.

Over 170 people were killed overall in several simultaneous attacks around the Indian city.

According to Jirhad, the Jewish community had never even considered requesting security.

Last month, she said, the community for the first time sent approximately 30 local young men to Israel, to be trained by security officials here.

Trainees will soon form a volunteer security force for synagogues.

"For many years we took our safety for granted," she said. "The terrorist threat is external. We are sure our Indian neighbors would never hurt Jews."

Her two sons, aged 14 and 18, learned Torah with the Israeli-born American Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg, 29, who was killed in the Chabad center in Mumbai along with his wife, 28-year-old Rivka Holtzberg. Their 2-year-old son Moshe survived.

The rabbi helped her older son to prepare for his bar mitzvah. "My family knew Gabby [Holtzberg] and Rivka very well," Jirhad said. "We were good friends. Their death was a great shock to us personally."