Jerusalem, Tuesday 2 December 2008: Bringing internal differences within Israel’s Jewish community to the fore, the family of one of the victims of the terror attack in Mumbai has rejected Israel’s offer to hold an official memorial ceremony for him.

The family of Aryeh Leibish Teitelboim, an ultra-Orthodox Jew belonging to the anti-Zionist Satmar Hassidic sect that does not recognise Israel, rejected the proposal.

The bodies of the six Jewish and Israeli victims of the attack in Nariman House reached here on Monday night in a special Israel Air Force aircraft.

While the bodies of Rabbi Gabi Holtzberg and his wife Rivka, Ben-Zion Korman and Ycheved Orpaz, were draped in prayer shawls and the Israeli flag, Teitelboim’s body was draped only in a prayer shawl.

The body of the sixth victim, Mexican citizen Norma Schwartzblatt-Rabinowitz, was also not draped in the Israeli flag.

Teitelboim had earlier renounced his Israeli citizenship.
(Agency)