JERUSALEM — A somber Israel buried Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivkah, on Jerusalem's Mount of Olives on Tuesday, his body wrapped in a prayer shawl, hers in a shroud.
They left behind 2-year-old son Moshe, who had been with them in Mumbai, India, and many mysteries about the circumstances of their violent deaths.
The Holtzbergs were among six Jews killed last week during a terrorist attack on the obscure outreach center the pair were running in the back streets of the metropolis in western India, part of the calculated carnage that left more than 170 people dead across the nation's financial capital.
Details of the attack that killed the Holtzbergs and the four others, who also were buried Tuesday in Israel, have begun to emerge. The still murky account was provided by the only two adult survivors of the assault on the Chabad-Lubavitch center and by Indians living nearby.
The sketchy information has only raised troubling questions. Why, for example, did Indian police take hours to respond to the first explosions and gunfire at the center? Were any of the Jewish hostages killed by Indian commandos during the final assault to free them, or were they already dead?
There are reports of a terrorist answering overseas phone calls from friends of the Holtzbergs, who were frantically trying to win their release; heartbreaking accounts of a blood-soaked Moshe crying at the side of his slain parents.
And still, no clear explanation of the assailants' aim in attacking a faceless Jewish center on an unpaved back street of Mumbai.
On the day of the attack, the Holtzbergs were hosting a small group in the ultra-Orthodox center, one of hundreds of Chabad houses in 70 countries.
An unarmed Indian guard sat outside as five Jewish travelers dropped in for afternoon prayers, a kosher meal at the Holtzbergs' table and a bed for the night.
Yocheved Orpaz, a 60-year-old Israeli, was en route to join her family on an Indian vacation. Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum, a 37-year-old American resident of Israel, and his friend Bentzion Chroman, 28, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen, were in India as part of their international work supervising the preparation of kosher food.
They were joined by David Bialka, a 52-year-old diamond trader and a frequent guest at the center on his business travels, and Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich, a 50-year-old Mexican Jew visiting India on her way to start a new life in Israel.
