Ari Halberstam - Victim

Victim

The deceased victim, Ari Halberstam, was a yeshiva student from a distinguished family associated with the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, who was killed in a terrorist shooting in New York City. He was raised under the personal supervision of the seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Halberstam family's ties to the Rebbe include his father, who worked as a butler and personal manager to the Rebbe. The Halberstam family also includes a rabbinic dynasty of its own, the Bobovers, whose first Rebbe was Shlomo Halberstam.

On March 1, 1994, Ari Halberstam was visiting the ailing Rebbe at the Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat Hospital, and was returning to his Brooklyn home via the Brooklyn Bridge. On the entrance ramp to the bridge, gunman Rashid Baz opened fire on the van, which also carried more than a dozen other Hasidic students. The attack critically wounded two of the young men and injured two others. The lone gunman, who was equipped with a submachine gun, two 9mm guns, and a "street sweeper" shotgun, pursued the van full of terrified students across the bridge. He fired in three separate bursts, spraying both sides of the van, before disappearing into traffic. During the shooting spree, the gunman reportedly shouted in Arabic "Kill the Jews," expressing revenge for the terrorist massacre of 29 Muslim worshipers at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron by Baruch Goldstein.

Halberstam was rushed to St. Vincent's Hospital and was the most severely wounded, having been shot in the head by Baz. As a result of the massive brain injuries, Halberstam was pronounced dead five days after the shooting.

As the funeral procession took place on Eastern Parkway, outside the central Lubavitcher synagogue, some 10,000 mourners and more than 250 police officers took part in the event, to maintain safety. Halberstam was buried in the Montefiore Cemetery in Queens. Later that year, the Rebbe died and was buried across the aisle from Halberstam.