When terrorists stormed Mumbai, India’s central Chabad-Lubavitch center, Yocheved Orpaz, a 62-year-old grandmother and mother of four from Israel had just moments before, stopped by to thank its directors for all their help in procuring kosher food. For days, her family prayed that she wasn’t among the hostages – later, the six victims – recovered from the building, but an e-mail left them fearing the worst.
Prior to her Tuesday burial, she was remembered as a kind-hearted soul. A friend described her as “someone with a big heart.”
Orpaz, a resident of Givatayim, an urban town just east of Tel Aviv, traveled to India last month to spend time with her daughter Ayala and her two grandchildren. Since she kept kosher, Chabad House directors Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg provided her with food and showed her what to buy in the market.
Last Wednesday night, at the end of the trip, Orpaz went back to the Chabad House to thank the Holtzbergs. She sent her daughter an e-mail saying she had arrived safely, but a short time later, suspected Islamist gunmen entered the Chabad House.
When news of the attacks – which by the end of Indian military operations on Saturday, had claimed more than 195 lives – broke, one of the woman’s sons traveled to India in the hopes of finding her. Instead, her body was identified in a hospital morgue.
“She was an amazing and noble woman, a good fairy,” said her sister, Orly. “We were waiting for a miracle.”
Family and friends laid Yocheved Orpaz to rest at a cemetery in Tel Aviv.
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