divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/43031?ns=guardianpageName=Business%3A+The+road+to+ruinch=Businessc3=The+Guardianc4=Automotive+industry+%28Business%29%2CGeneral+Motors%2CFord%2CBusiness%2CUS+economy+%28Business%29%2CUS+news%2CWorld+newsc5=Motoring%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CUS+Economyc6=Ed+Pilkingtonc7=2008_12_03c8=1127737c9=articlec10=GUc11=Businessc12=Automotive+industryc13=c14=h2=GU%2FBusiness%2FAutomotive+industry" width="1" height="1" //divpThe Ford plant in Highland Park, a city within the city of Detroit, is a monument to the American automobile. It opened in 1910, and three years later pioneered the world's first car assembly line. In 1925, it spewed out 9,000 Model Ts in a single day. The revolution that turned America into a car-owning democracy had arrived. Today, there is ample evidence of that revolution. The factory looks over a six-lane highway that is heavy with traffic from dawn to dusk. Next door is a drive-thru McDonald's, where customers come to order Big Macs before rolling 50 metres to a drive-thru chemists to pick up indigestion tablets./ppThe story of the plant is told in one of those green-and-gold heritage plaques erected by the main entrance. It says: "Mass production soon moved from here to all phases of American industry and set the pattern of abundance for 20th-century living." Pattern of abundance: the phrase reads like a sick joke, for the Ford factory it describes is a shell of what it once was. Its red brick and granite walls still stand proud, framed by decorative mosaics. But the windows are broken or boarded up, its ceilings have gaping holes, the floor is covered in broken lumps of fallen plaster. On the roof, the flagpole that for years flew the Stars and Stripes is rusty and bare./ppOther companies, other countries, might have turned Henry Ford's factory of dreams into a museum rather than let it decay into the pitiful wreck that it is today. But Ford, and its fellows in the Big Three - General Motors (GM) and Chrysler - have enough to do staying alive without worrying about preserving the past. GM, the giant of the three, has lost $73bn in the past three years; it is haemorrhaging $2bn a month. At that rate it will run out of cash by the middle of next year and collapse by that year's end, potentially bringing millions of workers down with it. Which is why the CEOs of the three giants took their begging bowls to Washington earlier this month, pleading for a "bridging loan" of $25bn./ppThey didn't get a warm reception. They were ridiculed by senators for having flown in three separate corporate jets, an act that must rank among the most impressive PR disasters of the decade. But what the senators and the largely hostile media coverage missed was that the miserable condition of the Detroit car industry is not merely a comment on the failed leadership of its corporate executives, though it is that. It is also a matter of personal survival for millions of Americans who depend, directly or indirectly, on the revolution Henry Ford began 100 years ago./ppNowhere is this more visible than in Detroit, the crucible of the Big Three. Half of GM's 100,000 workers live in the city, and they in turn support a spider's web of relatives, spin-off industries and services. Detroit is really nothing but a company town. Hamtramckis a city within the city that borders one of GM's main factories. When GM enjoyed good times, Hamtramck boomed. Now GM is in the doldrums, Hamtramck is too. We walk along a stretch of shops along one of its main streets. First in line is Anna's Beauty Salon: it's closed, but the sign on the door suggests Anna is managing to stay open four days a week. Next, Popular Fashion and Variety Store: shut down. Billiards and Burger Hall: abandoned. Antiques store, an oil painting portraying an autumn landscape still in its window: deserted. Law offices: vacant. Funeral home: open. Even in a recession, one aspect of life must go on - the ending of it./ppOn the other side of the road is the Family Donut shop, a local institution run by a Polish family for the past 28 years. It has a picture of Princess Diana on the wall, a gift from one of the regular clients, and another of the Three Stooges. The owner, Vojno, is unloading a bundle of cardboard boxes used to pack the donuts. A few years ago he would order up to 30 bundles a month; now it's 10. On Polish festive days, there would be a line of customers out the door and round the corner, and the stools at the counter would be loaded. Today, the line is more of a dribble and the counter is largely empty. Unless GM recovers, and money starts flowing again, he will have to close in a few months. "It's not just me. Everybody around here is going to shut down," he says. What will he do if he does have to close? "I'll stay home and sleep. I'm hungry for sleep," he says./ppOne of the few clients, dressed in a bomber jacket with Detroit written across the back, shouts over at him. "You only work one job, so why do you need to sleep?"/pp"Shut up, Eddie," Vojno replies./pp"I work three jobs to make my money," Eddie Fabiszak says, prompting the only other customer in the bakery to say, under his breath: "Lucky man."/ppThe other customer is Melis Lejlic, 27, a naturalised American originally from Bosnia. His father and mother, two uncles and a cousin all work in the car business. All now fear redundancy. Lejlic works in construction, but that is no better. Car workers are no longer spending on home improvements, so demand for his work has fallen by half. Of 10 builders he knows, seven are unemployed. "Everybody in a small town like this is looking to the car industry, and there's no hope there," he says. "Drive around, you'll see. Detroit is worse right now than Baghdad."/ppThe comparison sounds far-fetched, but in the streets around the GM plant you can see what he means. Several houses have no glazing in their rickety wooden walls. Front lawns have turned into littered pasture. Walls are lined with barbed wire. A mural of a Stars and Stripes has been graffitied. And though it is nothing like Baghdad, there is clearly a market in lawlessness. A poster advertising the services of a lawyer says: "Aggressive criminal defence. Drugs CCW [carrying a concealed weapon] Theft Murder All felonies misdemeanours." That is how Henry Ford's dream looks in November 2008./ppGM's headquarters in downtown Detroit dominate the city's skyline. The seven cylindrical glass towers of the Renaissance Centre were built in 1977 as a statement of the company's untouchable status as the then unquestioned king of the auto world. Inside the main tower, there is an exhibition of some of GM's most memorable models, dating back to the 1950s. It is almost shocking to see how beautiful and exhilarating those cars were. There is a 1953 Chevrolet Corvette Roadster, built largely by hand, its white, sensuous curves set off by red leather seats. Then there's a 1955 Chevrolet Bel Air in black, the quintessential car of the American dream, big enough to carry a family to its suburban home but sufficiently powerful and sleek to avoid any sense of frumpiness. Pride of place goes to a 1959 Cadillac series 62 convertible, which is an outrageously attractive work of art. This was the baby of Harley Earl, GM's legendary designer. Inspired by the tail of a second world war fighter plane, he placed fins on the back of the car, with rear brake lights the shape of rockets and exhausts mimicking those of a jet. The 59 Cadillac summed up an entire generation - young, dangerous, fast, unstoppable./ppPeter DeLorenzo spent 22 years working in the car business as an advertising and marketing consultant and now runs an influential website called Autoextremist. He explains that when the explosion of creativity burst out in the 50s, Detroit had just emerged from the crucial role it had played as the manufacturing backbone of the war effort, churning out tanks and missiles at extraordinary rate, and confidence was riding high. "Coming out of the second world war, the automobile was the symbol of American might. GM was the symbol of American might, and most Americans were proud that GM was a successful corporation that turned out magnificent cars people wanted."/ppThe design-led strategy not only generated exquisite cars, it worked handsomely for GM. In 1955, four out of every five cars around the world were US-produced and half of those came from GM. The Big Three monopolised around 95% of the domestic market, and between them they transformed the US. They provided the stimulus for the biggest construction project in world history - the laying of the US interstate highways - and gave birth to the suburbs and to urban sprawl. Think Los Angeles. Think Phoenix rising out of the desert of Arizona./ppHow you get from the invincibility of those days to the verge of bankruptcy is a cautionary tale for the whole of America as its dominance wanes in an increasingly globalised economy. DeLorenzo, who has written a book called The United States of Toyota, dates the start of the rot to 1979 - just after GM had moved into its monolithic new headquarters in the Renaissance Centre. By then Japanese car companies were already snapping at the heels of the Big Three, but Detroit ignored the threat, steeped in complacency that the good times would last for ever. Leadership within the business also crucially changed hands, from the designers to what DeLorenzo calls the "bean counters". /ppBy the 1990s, the Big Three's reputation for innovation and beauty had withered, replaced by a reputation for faulty products. "People started to associate Detroit with cars coming off the assembly line and their doors falling off," says Micheline Maynard, a New York Times business reporter and author of The End of Detroit: How the Big Three Lost Their Grip. She recounts how in 2002 GM's vice-chairman, Bob Lutz, declared that their vehicles were every bit as reliable as Honda's and Toyota's; that same afternoon GM recalled 1.5m minivans./ppFrom the sleek elegance of the 1959 Cadillac to the lumpen brutality of the Hummer: what was in the mind of the GM executive who conceived putting a machine modelled on armoured vehicles on to the civilian streets of US cities, at barely 13 miles per gallon? But then Lutz has argued that that hybrids like the Toyota Prius "make no economic sense" and once called global warming "a total crock of shit"./ppThe other key element in the demise of Detroit concerns the staple of the American auto industry - the car worker. Ron Nidiffer is drinking beer in the New Dodge Lounge in Hamtramck, temporarily off work as the GM plant has suspended production for want of sales. He has worked in car factories for 36 years, 10 of them on the assembly line. He is one of a dying breed of car workers who had their pay and conditions set back in the heyday. His union, the United Auto Workers, negotiated a series of deals in the 1970s and 80s that have become the albatross around the industry's neck. He makes $29 an hour - substantially more than American workers in Japanese plants that have been transplanted to the non-unionised south, from Alabama to Texas. /ppBut the trouble really starts when you include the so-called "legacy costs", the generous terms agreed for pensions and health care that allowed workers to retire as young as 48. GM now carries about 470,000 retirees and spouses on benefits - more than four times its productive workforce - adding a total of about $2,000 for every car it makes, a terrible burden in the face of fierce foreign competition./ppThe symbol of excess that the UAW's critics like to point to is the "jobs banks", by which workers are paid 95% of their salaries for doing nothing. The scheme was introduced as a way of ensuring minimum employment levels, but billowed uncontrollably until it included about 40,000 workers. Nidiffer concedes that looking back, the jobs bank was indefensible. "Yes, it was a bad idea. And I understand why some people are jealous of what we've had. We had good conditions, even to excess."/ppBut what annoys him is the assumption that the largesse and complacency that epitomised the attitude of both unions and management is still prevalent today. The job banks have been whittled down to 3,500 workers, and wages have been cut in half for all new employees. He is one of the last at the GM plant in Hamtramck to enjoy the old $29 an hour rate, the others having taken redundancy. A deal has also been struck to lift the burden of legacy costs from GM's shoulders by transferring health insurance into an independent fund administered by the union. After all that, to hear Congress turn away the plea for $25bn from the Big Three CEOs makes Nidiffer see red. "I'm extremely mad. We've made all these concessions, taken the hit, and yet we're still accused of being lazy and greedy."/ppIt has not made him any happier that while Congress rebuffed Detroit, it has bailed out the banks with apparent alacrity, including Citibank which was last week handed the exact amount requested by the Big Three. "We're looking for a pittance compared with what they've given the banks," Nidiffer says. His anger is echoed in the front-page headline in the Detroit Free Press: "$85 billion for AIG. $700 billion for financial firms. $25 billion for Citigroup. Why is the bar so high for $25 billion to Detroit?"/ppNidiffer's frustration is heightened by his belief that if Detroit can see it through another 18 months it will have turned the corner. His GM plant is poised to produce the Volt, a new plug-in electric hybrid that will run for 40 miles on one full battery before a tiny petrol motor recharges it. The cutting-edge model, which goes into production in 2010, has been spearheaded by Bob Lutz, the global warming sceptic - a sign of how dramatically the outlook has changed at GM./ppBut none of the new ideas being scrambled out by the Big Three will matter if they fail to make it to 2010. Will the Volt go down in history as a great idea that GM carried with it to its grave? "There used to be a saying, so goes GM, so goes the country," Nidiffer says. "That was in happy days. But the same is true now. If GM goes under, the ripple effect will be felt throughout America."/ppA car worker desperate to hold on to his job would say that, wouldn't he? But economists agree. Susan Helper, a professor at Case Western university, says if GM went into bankruptcy next year, it could set in train a knock-on effect that would hit not just the 240,000 employees of the Big Three, but also 730,000 suppliers and about 1 million people working in dealerships across the country. Harder to quantify, but potentially even more devastating, would be the loss of social capital - the knowledge that is imbedded in a generation. "The idea that you can just liquidate Detroit and start again is crazy. Knowledge is not held by any one person, but comes from how people in a company interact."/ppCrunch time is coming. The tragedy of the American car is approaching its climax. You can feel it, palpably, on the lot of Galeana's Dodge dealership, a short drive away from Nidiffer's watering hole. Balloons in red, white and blue festoon the long line of cars, but who are they fooling? A more accurate reflection of the mood are the signs propped up under a succession of bonnets that spell the word S-A-L-E. Inside, a query about how things are going is met with the reply: "Look at the board." The board in question has just one car handwritten on it - the extent of today's business. Two years ago, the daily average was 15 cars./ppChrysler, which owns the Dodge brand, used to offer huge discounts on the price of the cars disguised as leasing agreements. But in July it announced it was suspending all leasing, and business went through the floor. The Big Three can no longer afford to lower their prices, so instead the cars sit on the lot, looking cheerful beneath the balloons. There is one small cause for hope for Galeana's dealers. A local Chrysler plant has just announced 5,000 job losses, and each worker made redundant will be given a voucher to buy a new Dodge car. It's come to this: the only chink of light for the dealers are the redundancy packages of the workers who make the cars they sell./ppThis week, the CEOs of the Big Three have one last shot at saving Detroit. They are travelling back to Washington to plead their case again. And this time, they won't be going by private jet - Ford's Alan Mulally will drive a Ford hybrid, and GM chief executive Rick Wagoner and Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli will fly on commercial planes. Tomorrow and on Friday, they will present Congress committees with a new business plan that is expected to include a cap on top bosses' pay, concessions from the UAW and the death of the most loss-making brands. Less certain is the outcome. Will they get their $25bn and, if they do, will it be anywhere like enough? Or will this once great institution, this embodiment of American might and ingenuity - and with it the livelihood of millions - go the way of Henry Ford's factory of dreams./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/automotive"Automotive industry/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/generalmotors"General Motors/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/ford"Ford/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/useconomy"US economy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/LPbma0ZH57Qib3vjcofBZfL78zw/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Amid the sadness and shock at the Mumbai attacks, bloggers across the Arab world are posing many questions.

Bahraini Hasan Hujairi is very saddened by the news. He writes:

I’ve been very saddened by the news of the recent terrorist attacks in the city of Mumbai. I cannot imagine any reason that would justify carrying out such a terrible and mindless act.
My heart goes out to those affected both directly and indirectly by this tragedy.

From Dubai, UAE, Seabee poses a lot of questions and here are some of them:

I simply don't understand anything to do with the obscene killings in Mumbai.

I don't understand the mentality of people who randomly take innocent lives. The vast majority of the dead and injured are Indians, hotel workers, train travellers, people simply going about their daily business.

We're told that Americans and British tourists were specifically singled out in some instances. Yet many of them may well have opposed their governments' policies, so what does the simple fact of citizenship have to do with anything?

I don't understand how a country which has had so many terrorist attacks over recent years can have been so unprepared.

Rantings of an Arab Chick too is annoyed and writes:

It goes without saying that my heart goes out to the victims of the terror attacks in Mumbai, those who made it and those who didn't. I don't believe that justice is always meted out and that punishment always falls upon those who deserve it, but I can sure as hell wish for it.

Egyptian blogger Zeinobia wonders:

In any hostage situation there should be hostages , kidnappers, negotiators and demands where as in the latest Mumbai terrible terrorist acts there were hostages,Kidnappers and forces but no negotiators or demands !!??

What were the kidnappers demands ?? They did not take that big number of hostages for nothing !!?? The demands will indicate the identity of the kidnappers so why the Indian government does not announce these demands now !!??

There is something I don’t understand and Please Pardon my question but how on earth 10 people only cause all that destruction in Mumbai in one day or rather three days or even how 10 people can control a hotel in the size of Tag Mahal for three days !!?? This is what the authorities in India said !!??

An Egyptian [Ar] is appalled with the lack of interest among bloggers from Egypt and the rest of the Arab world. He notes:

انا بتابع اكتر من 100 بلوج مصري و عربي طبعا 99% منهم بتوع مسلمين
ماشÙتش ولا واحد كتب عن هجمات مومباى ياترى عاملين ودن من طين Ùˆ أخرى من عجين ليه؟
بس بصراحة سمعة المسلمين بقت وحشة اوى بعد الموضوع ده I have been following more than 100 Egyptian and Arab blogs, and of course 99 per cent of them, belong to Muslims. I haven't seen a single one of them writing about the Mumbai attacks. I wonder why they are totally ignoring it?
The truth is that the reputation of Muslims has become very bad after this attack.

Still in Egypt, ~W~, who writes at I Wanna Hold Your Hand, posts a discussion she had with her neighbour on the attacks. Here's the beginning of the discussion:

Me (pointing to the newspaper on her coffee table): Terrible events. I am so upset. I do not know what these terrorists are thinking when they kill innocent people in the name of Islam.
AS : They think they are fighting in the name of God, and they may have a point.

Follow the link above to read the rest of it.

At the online forum, Omania2.net one reader writes:

كم هو مخجل ألا يدين الأÙراد والمجتمع والمؤسسات وعلماء الدين الأعمال الإرهابية التي يرتكبها بعض الوحوش بإسم الإسلام …. هناك بعض الدول أدانت التÙجيرات مثل قطر والإمارات وباكستان ولكن على الصعيد الشعبي لم نرى شيئا …. بينما الواجب أن يستهجن المجتمع المدني ÙÙŠ الدول الإسلامية هذه الأعمال وأن يتبرأ المسلمون من مثل هذه الأعمال التي تلصق على الإسلام والإسلام براء منها …. It is a shame that individuals, society, organisations and clergymen have not condemned the acts of terrorism committed by beasts in the name of Islam. There are some countries like Qatar, the UAE and Pakistan, which have condemned the attacks, but on a public level, we didn't see anything. It is our duty as Muslim communities to condemn these actions and Muslims should renounce these actions as they have nothing to do with Muslims and Islam.

Another commentator, Ibn Al Rahbi, said he sent cables and letters of condolences to all his Indian friends and acquaintances.

Writing on American-Palestinian Kabobfest, Will, links to the following Al Jazeera report, and says:

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The violent ideology behind such senseless attacks belies the emptiness of the group's claims to be defending Muslims. While they are correct that western media and publics are generally blind to and complicit in Muslim suffering, such tactics are unjustifiable in religious, moral and political terms.

And in Kuwait, which had eight women taken as hostages at the Oberoi, bloggers breathe a sigh of relief when their hostages returned home safe.

DiLLi O MiLLi posts a newspaper clipping showing the women being recieved by officials and family at the Kuwait airport. Q8ia Mamloo7a too shares the news on her blog saying:

الحمد والشكر لله سبحانه
قرت عينكم يا أهل الكويت بسلامة المحتجزين
تم الاÙراج عن جميع المحتجزين الكويتيين
والامير يأمر بإعادتهم بطائره خاصه Thanks to Allah Almighty, Kuwait rejoices at the safety of its hostages, who have been released, and the Amir (Ruler) ordered that they be returned [to Kuwait] on his private jet.

Cyclic Tragedy and Farce Perhaps we need to update Marx’s idea of history that it “repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce” to suit the history of terrorism in India where each cyclic repetition consists of a brutal tragedy immediately followed by a hopeless farce. The script is tiresomely familiar. Islamic terrorists attack and kill by [...]

pspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;Wally Lamb has written two hugely successful best-selling novels: emstrongShe#39;s Come Undone/strong/em and emstrongI Know This Much/strong/em. He has been called quot;a modern-day Dostoevskyquot; because his characters are introspective and search for a quot;mocking, sadistic Godquot; in the process of coming to grips with life. br /br /span style=text-decoration: underline;a href=http://johnharmstrong.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451cfe769e201053617f9be970b-pi style=float: left;img alt=Novel class=at-xid-6a00d83451cfe769e201053617f9be970b src=http://johnharmstrong.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451cfe769e201053617f9be970b-120wi style=margin: 0px 5px 5px 0px; //a /spanLamb#39;s new novel, recently released after some ten years in the making, is over 700 pages long and titled: emstrongThe Hour I First Believed/strong/em. The new book deals with tragedy in general and the teen killings at Columbine in particular. While Lamb was writing this novel 9/11 shattered our daily lives in an unusual way. Then this horror was followed by the widening war in Iraq and Afghanistan and Hurricane Katrina. Says Lamb, quot;I worried this novel into existence.quot; A reporter writes that at one point Lamb was so vexed that he offered to pay back a large royalty advance and give up the entire project. /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;Lamb believes the media did not portray the shooters at Columbine accurately. He feels they did not kill because they were quot;bulliedquot; bur rather, quot;The killers were motivated more by feelings of superiority than inferiority. They thought they had the right to play God.quot; /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;Coming from a man who has spent a decade studying and writing about violence and heartbreak I have to take this observation quite seriously. I have always wondered about the mainstream analysis of the Columbine evil and now I have good reason to wonder even more. /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;Lamb says his spirit was nearly broken by this study. quot;I#39;m scared by the randomness that can happen in life. Yet I ended up feeling hopeful about a world that somehow goes on in spite of it.quot; /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;a href=http://johnharmstrong.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451cfe769e2010536206cf3970c-pi style=float: right;img alt=Lamb border=0 class=at-xid-6a00d83451cfe769e2010536206cf3970c src=http://johnharmstrong.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451cfe769e2010536206cf3970c-800wi style=margin: 0px 0px 5px 5px; title=Lamb //a Lamb has apparently grasped something deeply human about all of this but lacks the perspective that a robust doctrine of Christian providence can give to those who fear and grieve in the midst of divine hope. /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;Providence is very often rejected or misunderstood in our time. The famous emHeidelberg Catechism/em says:/span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;quot;Providence is the almighty and ever present power of God by which he upholds, as with his hand, heaven and earth and all creatures, and so rules them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and lean years, food and drink, health and sickness, prosperity and poverty---all things in fact, come to us not by chance but from his fatherly handquot; (Question 27). /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;The alternative to such a view of providence is appealing on one level, since it seems to create a universe where random acts of violence and kindness co-exist and God is not sovereign in any meaningful sense. But I have never understood how a Christian gains comfort from random acts of either violence or kindness. There is nothing random about God#39;s care for his creation, especially his care for his own children. Mystery abounds for sure but removing God#39;s personal care is not a solution, or at least it is not one that lends any measure of comfort to the human soul. /span/ppspan style=font-size: 14px; font-family: Verdana;I think I will read Lamb#39;s novel but I expect that I will wonder where providence fits in the world that he responds to as a truly great story-teller. /span/pbr /

Social workers will face annual spot checks as part of sweeping changes to children’s care after the Baby P tragedy in Haringey.

John Oliver explains that when you're a bankrupt ideology pursuing a bankrupt strategy, the only move you've got is the dick one.

Israel continues to stand by the victims and survivors of the terror in Mumbai. Awash with deep sympathies, the blogosphere's sentiments speak for themselves in mourning the loss of Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg, along with six other Israelis.

Reactions fell into three predominant camps with bloggers asking the questions:

• What should our response to terrorism and tragedy be?
• Why were the Jews targeted in this instance?
• What good can come of this?

Here are their responses.

The Jewish Response to Terrorism and Tragedy–

Rabbi Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg (may their memories be a blessing). Photo sourced from Chabad.org

Rabbi Yonah of Jewlicious writes:

“I am heartbroken. The Jewish world weeps over the brutal murders of Jews, Indians, and others in Mumbai. News of the tragedy spread around the globe in minutes. We are all truly connected.

The response to the tragedy cannot be depression, but hard work. The way for us to avenge the blood of the murdered is to erect pillars of loving kindness and charity.”

Rav Eliyahu of A Dwelling Place for G-D in the Lower Worlds in an entry entitled “The Torah Response to Terrorism” echoes Rabbi Yonah, saying:

“The world is faced with terror all around it – now so, perhaps – more than ever. How should we react? What is the Torah response to terrorism?! …The response is a clear one. Continue to grow! Continue to do good. Do even more good!”

Leiv Esther joins the consensus on the Jewish response to tragedy:

“It is always hard to hear of Jews being hurt in any way. The Jewish response to any difficulty is to increase in our efforts to bring unity amongst Jews and goodness and kindness to the world.”

On an entry entitled “Muslims Mourn Mumbai Massacre,” Daniel Lubetsky points out that for the first time, Islamic nations have publicly condemned this terrorist act. In his Peaceworks blog, he posts:

“…a sample (by no means exhaustive) compilation of some of the Arab and Muslim nations and organizations across the world - from Saudi Arabia to the Arab League - who condemned the tragic and barbaric terrorist acts in Mumbai. Everyone can always do better, but the below can be shared whenever you are asked “Why are Muslims not condemning terrorism?”

Even blogs devoted to unrelated themes join in. Israeli Kitchen blogs:

“A candle for the victims of the Mumbai massacre. May G-d comfort their families and avenge their spilled blood.”

A Jewish man saying prayers in India. Photo sourced from Chabad.org

Why Jews Were Targeted

In a post analyzing why Jews (who were by coincidence also Israeli) were specifically targeted, Israellycool establishes a thesis that the terrorists' goal is to “establish a global Islamic Caliphate and impose Sharia law on societies currently based on Judeo-Christian principles.” He writes:

“It is no coincidence that the terrorists target Jews. Evil will always target Jews because we represent G-d in the world. It was true with the Nazis, and it is true with Islamic terrorism, the new Nazism. We have the task to be a light unto the nations, and even when though we may not always be completely successful, we have not done such a bad job. Especially when you look at the amazing work performed by a Jewish organization such as Chabad.”

In conclusion, he proposes a worldwide war on terrorism by ordinary people asking us to support Israel and all global democracies and promote the message that those who support terrorism will never able to live as free people, self-ruling people in their own state.

Treppenwitz's David Bogner concurs with Israellycool and expands on his argument that Jews were specifically hunted down and killed in the Mumbai massacres. Bogner explains:

“Mumbai is a city of over 18 million people, yet there are only about five thousand Jews living there. And of those, only a few dozen are identifiably Jewish outside of the synagogue.

Heck, the entire country of India - with a staggering population of over 1.1 billion people - has only about 15 thousand Jews! I'm not so good at math, but I think that if you try to express the Jewish population as a percentage of the overall Indian population, you're going to end up with a lot of zeros to the right of the decimal point.

So isn't it weird that nobody seems to be talking about how statistically odd it is that this Muslim terror group sought out and attacked an unremarkable home containing one of India's only identifiably orthodox Jewish families.

Apparently the breaking news from Mumbai has demonstrated anew that targeting Jews is not unusual… even when just finding Jews in India to attack is harder than finding Samoans in Iceland. ”

A Rediff News report quotes the doctors' reactions to the Jewish hostages murders in a story entitled, “Doctors Shocked at Hostages' Torture,” writing:

“Of all the bodies, the Israeli victims bore the maximum torture marks. It was clear that they were killed on the 26th itself. It was obvious that they were tied up and tortured before they were killed. It was so bad that I do not want to go over the details even in my head again,” he said.

Corroborating the doctors' claims about torture was the information that the Intelligence Bureau had about the terror plan. “During his interrogation, Ajmal Kamal said they were specifically asked to target the foreigners, especially the Israelis,” an IB source said.”

Jameel of The Muqata expresses his anger at Israel for their criticism of Indian security's slow response.

“Hypocrisy rules in Israel today as IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldier Gilad Shalit remains a hostage in Gaza — a terrorist state created by Israel, and Israel's only stated way of freeing him, is the release of hundreds of murderous terrorists…

Yet my anger at Israel is displaced only by my sorrow and condolences for the families of the Jews murdered in Mumbai this past week.”

Indian Chabad House sign in Hebrew and English. Photo sourced from Chabad.org

Where Do We Go From Here?–

In our blackest moments, we ask ourselves, “Where do we go from here? What good can come of this?” There is no one answer– we must grieve and learn from it in our own ways– but Israeli bloggers have some suggestions.

Of like minds, both This is Israel and Jewlicious' CK post entries headed, “We Are All Chabad” and “We Are All Chabadniks,” commenting on how events such as these unite us as a worldwide Jewish family.

Yael of Aliyah! Step-By-Step reflects that for the first time since she was a child, the terror in Mumbai stirred her to fully celebrate Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath:

“It just really felt to me like the right thing to do, the best way to honour their memory and all the other lives lost, criminally lost. In large part because by celebrating Shabbat as a Jew I was carrying on one of the very things the terrorists were fighting to wipe out. By celebrating Shabbat, which is symbolically in essence the celebration of the miracle of life and love and goodness and commitment for a better future, it is absolute defiance and rejection and maybe a tiny countering of the evil that so obviously exists in this world.”

And in “A Light In To the Darkness,” Israellycool reminds us that: “When the world was witness to the worst of humanity, it was also witness to the best,” citing the rescue of the Holtzberg's two-year old son by his Indian nanny, Sandra Samuel, who saved him at the last possible moment.

(Samuel returned with the family to Israel today, where the Israeli government is considering bestowing upon her the title of “Righteous Gentile,” one of the nation's highest awards that is given to those who risk their own lives to save Jewish ones.)

Indian-Israeli unity flag. Photo sourced from Facebook's Israel Condolence Book for the Terror Victims of India.

How We Can Help–

So how can we help? Chabad has established the Chabad of Mumbai Relief Fund to aid with the reconstruction of the Chabad center there and help support the Holtzberg's young child. The Jewish Agency of Israel will also help the families of those lost through the Fund for the Victims of Terror.

Let us remember the names of those who perished in the Chabad House last week and they shall represent our mourning for all the victims of Mumbai. May their memories serve as a blessing and a lesson to us all.

• Bentzion Chroman (Ben-Zion Kruman)
• Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg
• Rivka Holtzberg
• Norma Shvarzblat Rabinovich
• Rabbi Leibish Teitlebaum (Aryeh Leibish Teitelbaum)
• Yocheved Orpaz

(Alternate spellings may be due to the transliteration of the names from Hebrew to English. Further names are pending release.)

Lastly, in a section of their website called, “What Can I Do?” Chabad urges us to honor the memories of those lost by committing to do mitzvot (good deeds) in their name. Over 950 have been pledged so far.

Further Reading–

This article is a continuation of “Israel: Sending Help and Sympathy to Mumbai” and is part of Global Voices Online's ongoing coverage of the Terror in Mumbai.