U.S. & World News

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) ― Reports started surfacing Friday morning of American casualties in the violence that has been plaguing Mumbai, India at the hand of gunmen for nearly three days. At least five Americans -- including a Virginia father and his daughter and a New York rabbi and two other Americans staying at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish center called Chabad-Lubavitch -- are reportedly among the victims in India.

Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, 29, and his wife, Rivkah, 28, died in the attack on the movement's center in Mumbai, Rabbi Zalman Schmotkin, a spokesman for the Chabad group, said in New York. The couple's toddler son, Moshe, was rescued by an employee and taken to his grandparents. A second son, who has been ailing, was with relatives in Israel when the attack occurred.

The Holtzbergs arrived in Mumbai in 2003 to run a synagogue, provide religious instruction and help people dealing with drug addiction and poverty. Both were born in Israel; Gavriel Holtzberg moved to the U.S. as a child and had dual Israeli-U.S. citizenship.

Shmotkin identified two other victims as Bentzion Chroman, an Israeli with dual U.S. citizenship, and Leibish Teitlebaum, an American from Brooklyn. He said a fifth victim was an Israeli woman but didn't have her name.

Members of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement gathered at the group's headquarters Friday to pray for the families of the dead.

"Gabi and Rivky Holtzberg made the ultimate sacrifice," said Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, vice chairman of the educational arm of Chabad-Lubavitch.

"As emissaries to Mumbai, Gabi and Rivky gave up the comforts of the West in order to spread Jewish pride in a corner of the world that was a frequent stop for throngs of Israeli tourists," he said. Three other people were killed at the center, authorities said, but their identities were not immediately released.

Twelve hours after gunmen stormed the center Wednesday, Sandra Samuel, a cook at the center, heard little Moshe's cries outside the room in which she had barricaded herself. She opened the door, grabbed the toddler and ran outside with another center worker. The little boy's pants were soaked with blood, and Samuel said she saw four people lying on the floor as she fled.

Rabbi Yehuda Krinsky said Moshe will turn 2 on Saturday. "Today, he became an orphan," he said.

Also killed were a man and his teenage daughter from a Virginia community that promotes a form of meditation, a colleague said Friday. Alan Scherr, 58, and daughter Naomi, 13, died in a cafe Wednesday night, said Bobbie Garvey, a spokeswoman for the Synchronicity Foundation.

The U.S. State Department confirmed their deaths.

The Scherrs were among 25 foundation participants in a spiritual program in Mumbai. Four others on the mission were injured in the cafe attack in the luxury Oberoi hotel, Garvey said, including two women from Tennessee.

"I would call them bright stars," Garvey said of the Scherrs. "Extraordinary, bright, very positive -- examples to the world."

Scherr was a former college professor who lived at the Synchronicity sanctuary about 15 miles southwest of Charlottesville. His wife, Kia, and her two sons did not travel with them to India.

According to the foundation's Web site, the community is led by Master Charles, a former leading disciple of Swami Paramahansa Muktananda. He is described as "one of the most popular spiritual teachers from India to build a following the West in the 1970s." He taught a form of yoga.

Garvey identified the Synchronicity members injured as Helen Connolly of Toronto, who was grazed by a bullet; Rudrani Devi and Linda Ragsdale, both of Nashville, who both underwent surgery for bullet wounds; and Michael Rudder of Montreal, who remains in intensive care after being shot three times. (Devi is also known as Andreina, or Andi, Varagona.) Other members of the mission narrowly escaped the attack.

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