But as in Mumbai, so here in Israel, the presence of his nanny Sandra Samuel is important to Moshe in all that he does. The frail 44-year-old who grabbed Moshe and fled Chabad House when there was a lull in the firing from the terrorists on the morning of November 27, has to always be within his sight. She disappears for a moment and he begins to wail, “Thandra, Thandra, Thandra, Thandra,” still unable to pronounce her name clearly, until she returns to hold him and console him. The anxiety of separation kicks in even if she is with him but shifts her attention to a conversation with a third person. “Thandra, Thandra,” he starts and waves his little arms at her until she stops whatever it is that she is doing and pays him attention. “Ninni coming?” she asks him, wondering if he wants to sleep.

Theirs is a fairytale bonding between a little-educated, poor Indian Catholic nanny apparently full of grit and fatalism—who took up the job for a few thousand rupees to run her house and stuck on as she found her employers to be loving as well—and a Jewish baby who has seen her by his side from his second week and probably considers her his second mother. Now, after 26/11, she is the only one left. Little wonder then that they are both possessive about each other.

“The first time I saw the Rabbi and Rivki, they were both dressed completely in black and I wondered who these people were,” Sandra recalls, referring to the Chabad custom of its followers having to wear mostly black. “I wasn’t sure about them until he said he was a Rabbi. I love Jewish people. They are special. In the Bible, God says he will bless the world through the Jews.”

... contd.