When Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, were killed by terrorists in Mumbai, India, last week, "the world got a little bit darker," Rabbi Elazar Green said Sunday night.

So Green and his wife, Shira, who are regional directors of Chabad Jewish Enrichment Center in Lancaster and York, challenged a group of 35 people to "make the world a little bit brighter" by doing more good deeds.

"I'm asking you to take inspiration from this couple who moved out of their comfort zone ... and we should move a little out of our comfort zone," the rabbi said.

The Greens held a memorial service attended by 35 people at the couple's Race Avenue home Sunday night to remember the Holtzbergs, who were gunned down by terrorists in the Chabad House they founded in Mumbai after moving there from Brooklyn in 2003.

The Holtzbergs' 2-year-old son, Moshe, survived the attack.

A Chabad House is "an outpost where the rabbi and his wife can serve the Jewish community," Green said.

The Greens' Race Avenue home is a Chabad House designed primarily to serve Jewish students at neighboring Franklin & Marshall College.

Services similar to the one held at the Greens' home on Sunday have been or will be held at Chabad Houses all over the world, Green said.

"This is a tragedy that affects Jews everywhere," he said.

According to Green, the Holtzbergs were natives of Israel who moved to India as emissaries to provide services to Jewish people in Mumbai, a popular tourist destination among Israelis.

The Holtzbergs set up their Chabad House in an area where there was no organized Jewish presence.

Holtzberg became a trained ritual slaughterer so kosher meat would be available to local Jews, and he and his wife served kosher meals every day to anyone who showed up at their Chabad House.

The rabbi also performed weddings for Jewish couples, circumcised newborns and taught Torah classes.

Green said he did not know the Holtzbergs personally, but he figures he likely corresponded with Holtzberg at some point through the extensive Chabad communications network.

"But it's not that I knew him or I didn't know him," Green said. "The way I feel, I am him."

In honor of the Holtzbergs, Green said he will start, beginning today, a weekly event called "pizza and parashah" at his home.

"Parashah" is the portion of the Torah scheduled for reading in any given week.

At Green's pizza and parashah, he said he plans to serve pizza for lunch and study and interpret the week's Torah reading.

"More learning and more knowledge is more light," Green said. "A brand-new program like this that can not only inspire people to come but perhaps to get other people to come means that the light is not only being lit, but is being carried as well.

"And who knows, maybe when they — our main target is F&M students — when they get to be older, they can have their own classes: their own discussion groups in their own cities or their dorm rooms."

The rabbi also charged several F&M students who are members of the campus club Chabad at F&M and who attended Sunday's memorial service with scheduling an event at the college involving "Jewish students, Indian students and anyone else who wants to come" to discuss last week's terrorist attack.

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