In March 2009, Harper spoke at a Parliament Hill ceremony organized by Chabad-Lubavitch to honour the Jewish victims of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which included an attack on the Nariman House. He expressed condolences over the murder at Chabad's Mumbai centre of Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife Rivka. Harper described the killings as "affronts to the values that unite all civilized people". Harper added that the quick instalment of a new rabbi at the Chabad centre in Mumbai as a signal that the Jewish people will "never bow to violence and hatred".