The bodies were placed side by side, wrapped in prayer shawls, in this Chabad-Lubavitch town near Tel Aviv.

The funeral was believed to be the largest gathering of chassidim since the death of the Lubavitcher Rebbe in 1994.

Distraught mourners shed tears for the couple's now-orphaned son, two-year-old Moshe, who was spirited out of the Mumbai Chabad House by his Indian nanny and is now in Israel.

"The whole world needs an answer to the question asked by a two-year-old child: 'Where is my mother?'," President Shimon Peres said.

Eight Jews - five of them Israelis - died in the horror attacks. Some in the Chabad House had reportedly been bound before being executed.

Adding to the cruelty, Rivka was six months pregnant.

She and Gavriel, who like her was born in Israel but grew up in New York, had decided shortly after getting married to become emissaries for the Lubavitch movement.

In a eulogy, Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a Chabad official from New York, described the young couple as dedicated people who would stop at nothing to help a fellow Jew.

"We will answer the terrorists," he cried out. "We will not fight them with AK47s. We will not fight them with grenades. We will not fight them with tanks."

He added: "We will fight them with torches," referring to following God's word. He pledged to rebuild the Mumbai centre and name it after the Holtzbergs.

Addressing the Holtzberg's son Moshe - who was not brought to the funeral - Rabbi Kotlarsky cried out: "Moisheleh, you have become the only child of the community of Israel, of the 4,000 Chabad emissaries throughout the world.

"They will adopt you, you are our child, you will always be the Rebbe's shaliach (emissary).

"You don't have a mother who will hug you and kiss you. You are the child of all of Israel."

In Jerusalem's Mea Shearim neighbourhood, thousands of ultra-Orthodox black-hatted mourners packed the narrow alleys and rooftops for the funeral of Leibish Teitelbaum, 38.

A US citizen who lived in Jerusalem, the father-of-eight was in Mumbai last week supervising the preparation of kosher food.

Death notices plastered the ultra-observant area's billboards and walls, reading: "May God avenge them". Loudspeakers blazed with the sounds of weeping, wailing mourners reciting psalms.

Teitelbaum was gunned down by the attackers while studying in the Chabad House shortly after finishing his prayers.

He was related to the leaders of the Satmar chassidim, who are ideologically opposed to the State of Israel.

The family had asked Israeli authorities not to drape his coffin in the Israeli flag even though his body was flown back at the state's expense on an Israel Air Force plane. The request was turned down.

Despite his opposition to the Jewish state, Teitelbaum married in Jerusalem, lived in the city and chose to be buried there. He was laid to rest on the Mount of Olives.

"He saw his purpose to be a rabbi in Israel in order to continue the legacy of his family," said a friend, Shmuel Poppenheim. "The bullets found him after prayer. He died there sanctifying God's name."

Victim Bentzion Kruman, 28, was buried in Bat Yam. Tel Aviv resident Yocheved Orpaz was buried in her home city and Norma Shvarzblat-Rabinovich, of Mexico, who was about to make aliyah, was buried in Givat Shaul.

Two American Jews, Alan Scherr, 58, and his daughter Naomi, 13, were also killed.