Members of the borough’s Indian and Jewish communities are continuing to denounce last week’s terrorist attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, which targeted sites such as two high-end hotels and a Jewish center and left 188 people dead.
“People are considering this a 9/11 in India,” said Taruna Mandhan, 31, an Indian immigrant from Jackson Heights, about the multiple, coordinated attacks that began on November 26 and lasted for three days. The attackers are believed to be militants based in Pakistan.
“It’s too much,” Mandhan added, explaining that India has been shaken by terrorist attacks, though not as serious as this one, for years.
“I feel very sad - so many innocent people died for nothing,” said Nanik Pannani, 65, also an Indian immigrant living in Jackson Heights.
Six of the attack’s victims were Jews who happened to be at the Nariman House, a Jewish outreach center which was one of the terrorists’ targets.
Among the Jewish victims were Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah Holtzberg, who previously lived in Brooklyn. The young couple, which ran the center, was murdered. But their two-year-old son, Moshe, was saved by his nanny.
“These terrorists had no reason to attack a Chabad house,” said Rabbi Yossi Blesofsky of the Chabad of Northeast Queens in Bayside. “It’s an incredible catastrophe. It’s a catastrophe that I have a problem dealing with,” he said about the bombings.
To help rebuild the Jewish center in Mumbai and to establish a trust fund for the orphaned child of the rabbi and his wife, the public can send donations to the Northeast Queens Chabad via its website, www.chabadnortheastqueens.com, said Blesofsky.
Meanwhile, he added, the best way to fight terrorism is through good deeds, unselfish acts and kindness. “All of those actions might seem weak in the face of a gun, but they absolutely have an impact.”
Representative Anthony Weiner (D-Queens, Brooklyn) was one of many politicians who also had a message. “These series of tragedies in Mumbai are a stark reminder that no country is off limits to terrorists. The U.S. must remain vigilant in rooting out evil terrorist networks,” Weiner said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Our publisher, Victoria Schneps-Yunis and her husband Stu had traveled to Mumbai just seven months ago and they stayed at two of the hotels and tourist spots. See this week’s Victoria’s Secrets column.
