Terrorism and mourning

• Readers of Chabad.org offer their own reminiscinces of Gavriel and Rivkah Holtzberg, the two Lubavitch emissaries killed in last week’s attacks.

I Will Always Miss You
Elias (Eliyahu) Samuel Ghosalkar, Mumbai

I am a Jew residing in Mumbai who was a close friend of Rabbi Gavriel and his family. I have been shattered by the news that I won’t be ever seeing my dear Rabbi and his wife again, but I know that they will surely live on in my heart and soul forever.

• Writing in The Jerusalem Post, Sherri Mandel, whose 13-year-old son Koby was killed in an Arab terrorist attack, offers some advice on mourning to bereaved family members now faced with the unthinkable.

When people tell you to be strong, don’t feel that you have to be. If you don’t allow yourself to mourn, you will never again be happy. Mourning is the active process of transforming grief. It is a demanding process. You need support to engage in the work of mourning…

Let yourself cry now; otherwise you will be crying in the years to come. Don’t let others tell you that your loved ones died for nothing. They died because they were innocent victims of radical Islamic hatred. They died because radical Islam is vicious and evil and worships destruction and stands against everything you hold dear.

When you refuse to be bowed by hatred and savagery, you honor your loved one by sanctifying life. For this reason it is paramount that you seek justice – but do not seek revenge. Revenge embitters you while justice elevates you. Justice is motivated by love; revenge is motivated by hatred. Revenge is the modus operandi of the terrorists, and their hatred for others will in the end be defeated.

• Why are some journalists reluctant to use the word "terrorists" when referring to the attackers in Mumbai? asks Tom Gross in The Wall Street Journal.

So why are so many prominent Western media reluctant to call the perpetrators terrorists? Why did Jon Snow, one of Britain’s most respected TV journalists, use the word "practitioners" when referring to the Mumbai terrorists? Was he perhaps confusing them with doctors?

Why did Britain’s highly regarded Channel 4 News state that the "militants" showed a "wanton disregard for race or creed" when exactly the opposite was true: Targets and victims were very carefully selected. Why did the "experts" invited to discuss the Mumbai attacks in one show on the state-funded Radio France Internationale, the voice of France around the world, harp on about Baruch Goldstein (who carried out the Hebron shootings in 1994), virtually the sole case of a Jewish terrorist in living memory?

Unfortunately in recent years we have become used to leftist media burying their heads in the sand about the threat that Islamic fundamentalism poses, in much the same way as they once refused to report accurately on communist atrocities. But now even conservative media may be doing it too.

• Honest Reporting offers its own critique of media inconsistency in using the word "terrorist."

• The tragedy at Nariman House was a boon to Orthodox Web sites, which posted real-time updates as the attack was taking place, reports Agence France-Presse.

Bloody images and screaming headlines of the tragedy at Chabad House in Mumbai have drawn an unprecedented number of visitors to usually low-key Jewish ultra-Orthodox websites.

The dramatic events in India have highlighted the web’s growing role in the reclusive ultra-Orthodox community, which had long shunned the Internet as a potential threat to its traditional way of life.

Some websites have crashed as readers sought updates on the attacks that left more than 170 people dead, including six Jews killed in the cultural and outreach centre run by Chabad, one of the world’s largest Jewish religious movements.