The mourners moved wearily up the hill, their hearts heavy, their souls numbed with the shattering tragedy that shook the world following the massacre by Islamist terrorists that ended on the first day of the Hebrew month of Kislev at the Nariman Chabad House in Mumbai, India. Rabbi Gavriel and Rebetzin Rivka Holtzberg, who for so long had offered respite to thousands of Jews that had passed through the Mumbai Chabad House doors, died in a hail of bullets.

Also slaughtered were two kosher food supervisors who had stopped in to simply pray the afternoon service with Gavriel and say "goodbye" before returning after completing their business in the country, Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum of Jerusalem and Rabbi Ben Tzion Kruman of Bat Yam. Two other visitors were brutally murdered as well: Yocheved Orpaz, and Norma Shvartzblat Rabinovich, a Mexican woman who was slated to immigrate to Israel and join her children only three days hence.

 
Approach road to the Mount of Olives

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
Mourners stream into the cemetery

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
The ancient Mount of Olives cemetery is filled with the graves of past Jewish leaders

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
Completing burial rites for Rabbi Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum, of blessed memory

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
Thousands gathered to bid a final farewell to the murder victims

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
Reciting the Kaddish, the prayer for the dead

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
Graves of Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, side by side as they were in life

Photo: Yishai Fleisher
 

May the memories of the martyrs be for a blessing and may they be good emissaries in Heaven for the loved ones they left behind.