Mumbai Attacks Put Jews On Alert

Thousands of people walked slowly up to the Mount of Olives to accompany Rabbi Gabriel and Rivka Holtzberg to their final resting place in Jerusalem yesterday.

The rabbi and his wife had been tortured and murdered by radical Muslims in far away Mumbai, India.

The only surviving Mumbai terrorist said they had come to Mumbai to locate and kill Jews.
It was hard for anyone in the crowd of mourners to not ask, in one way or another, whether this would be the last lethal Islamic attack on Jews abroad.

The Israeli government security cabinet entertained the question Monday morning as to whether the Israeli security establishment should protect Jewish institutions abroad.

The Islamist threat to Jews is a global one, even reaching into the Western hemisphere.

Presently, Muslims in North America slightly outnumber Jews, with seven million adherents, compared with six million for the latter.

According to an Islamic umbrella group, contacted by The Bulletin, most American Muslims enjoy a cordial relationship with their Jewish neighbors, but it estimated one million North American Muslims have shown hostility to Jews.

In that context, a Toronto scholar, fluent in Arabic, who now is completing his Ph.D. in Islam at York University, has noted alarming rhetoric on Arabic-language sites aimed at Jews.

In June, that Toronto scholar followed an Internet discussion of Arab Islamic groups that was intent on blowing up several Jewish religious institutions in Canada.

The scholar notified CSIS, the Canadian equivalent of the FBI, of what he was following.

CSIS moved swiftly and was able to apprehend the radical Canadian Islamists before they could do any damage.

Had it not been for one Arabic-speaking Canadian scholar, several Jewish institutions in Canada would have suffered the consequences of a devastating terror attack, as the world witnessed last week in Mumbai.

David Bedein can be reached at Bedein@thebulletin.us