‘This Was Their Life

Levine, with her friends Hillary Lewin and Heather Glubo, spent five weeks in Mumbai through a program co-sponsored by the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University. But what the three young women and many of their other classmates will remember most about that summer is the time they spent getting to know the Holtzbergs, who hosted the Jewish students each Shabbat at their Chabad house.

"The place was like a subway station," said Lewin, who is a second-year Ph.D. candidate at the Ferkauf School. She noted that over 40 Orthodox businessmen swarmed in and out of the Chabad house each day, and they hosted anyone and everyone — including recently released Israeli prisoners — at their Shabbat tables each week.

The female graduate students became particularly close with Rivkah because they were one of the few groups of women who spent time with the Holtzbergs on a consistent basis.

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