Ari Halberstam was a yeshiva student killed, aged 16, when Lebanese-born terrorist Rashid Baz shot at the van he was traveling in on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City, on the morning of March 1st, 1994.
Halberstam was one of 15 Chabad-Lubavitch Orthodox Jewish students in the van that had just joined the bridge from the FDR Drive on-ramp, when Baz opened fire on the vehicle from his car, and continued shooting as it travelled in the direction of Brooklyn. Halberstam was shot in the head and taken to St Vincent’s Hospital where he died five days later.
Ari’s mother, Devorah Halberstam, was instrumental in establishing Brooklyn’s Jewish Children’s Museum, which opened in 2004 and is officially dedicated in his memory. In 1995, New York City Council, formally named the Brooklyn Bridge on-ramp from southbound FDR Drive and Pearl Street in Manhattan the Ari Halberstam Memorial Ramp.
