Gavriel Holtzberg

Gavriel Holtzberg was born in 1979 in Kiryat Malachi

Gavriel Noach Holtzberg was born in Kiryat Malachi in 1979 to Nachman and Freida Holtzberg. He had 8 siblings. His family moved to Crown Heights in Brooklyn, New York, when he was a child.

As a pupil he memorized the Moed order of the Mishnah and twice won a Mishnah memorization contest. He placed second in an international Talmud competition in Jerusalem. He studied at yeshivas in New York and Argentina and served communities in Thailand and China as a rabbinical student.

In 2002 he married Rivka Rosenberg, and the couple moved to Mumbai to open the city's first Chabad House. Chabad acquired Nariman House under his leadership, where he set up a kosher kitchen and a mikvah, taught Torah and ran a hostel. The couple hosted weekly Shabbat meals for local Jews, travelers and Israeli backpackers.

He also served the local Indian Jewish community. He led Friday night services at the Knesset Eliyahoo synagogue, performed marriages, and worked as a shochet and a mohel.

Holtzberg and his wife were murdered on November 26, 2008, in the Mumbai attacks carried out by the group Lashkar-e-Taiba. Their son Moshe survived. Their son DovBer, who had Tay-Sachs disease, died in December 2008.