Moshe Holtzberg: Israeli boy who survived 26/11 attack to meet PM Modi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet 11-year-old Moshe Holtzberg during his landmark visit to Israel starting from Tuesday. Moshe is the boy who survived the horrific 26/11 attack in Mumbai. 

Two-year-old at the time, Moshe Holtzberg's father, Rabbi Gavriel, and mother Rivka, who was six months pregnant at the time, were killed by Pakistani terrorists at the Nariman House, Mumbai's Chabad Lubavitch Jewish centre.

Little Moshe was in the same building during the 26/11 carnage. When Sandra Samuel, Moshe's Indian nanny, found him, he sitting next to his parents' bullet-riddled bodies, crying and alive. Samuel risked her life and fled the Nariman House with the baby.

The visuals of his nanny's daring escape and his face crying on national television had brought tears in the eyes of the entire nation, which was already shaken badly by the attack. 

Nine-years-on Moshe's name has once again come to limelight over Pm Modi's decision to meet the boy during his Israel visit. After his parents' demise, his grandparents had taken him back with them alongwith his nanny Sandra Samuel. 

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According to a 2016 report published in Israel National News, Moshe's grandmother Yehudit Rosenberg raises him more like a son than a grandchild.

"He's a son-grandson," she said. "Our eldest grandson is 20, but I feel like Moshe is my son. God gave us the important mission of raising him the way his parents would have wanted to raise him, and we pray that we're doing it successfully, that we'll be healthy and have the energy and wisdom to educate Moshe the right way so that he'll continue the chain."

The little survivor also has the loving company of his Indian nanny, who the family insisted on bringing alongwith after the carnage. 

"Once I said I'd stay with Moshe until he turned five, then I said I'd stay with him until he turned ten. Now I say until his bar mitzvah. We just can't stand to be separated," said Samuel, the nanny who hasn't been able to stay away from Moshe since she rescued him.

Sandra said, "Moshe looks serious, but he's a ball of energy. I hope I can lead him to the marriage canopy when he's 22."