It has been almost 30 years since a terrorist’s bullet first tore the life of Devorah Halberstam.
It was then — in the waning winter of 1994 — that her 16-year-old son, Ari Halberstam, was brutally murdered on the Brooklyn Bridge by Rashid Baz, a Lebanese-born man who shot into the van in which Ari was riding. along with 15 other Orthodox Jewish students.
Decades later, her family was beset by another shocking tragedy: a brutal weekend attack by Hamas on Israel, which left her other son and his family stranded in the Jewish state.
“They were there on vacation, and of course now they’re going in and out of bomb shelters,” Halberstam told The Post. “It’s a non-stop rocket that keeps falling, and the sirens keep going off.”
“It’s a bit scary for them – but they keep it together, as they should, for young children,” he continued. “And I did everything I could to bring them home.”
It’s a frightening turn for Halberstam, who plunged into political activism after the murder of his eldest son. He was instrumental in passing the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, which he worked on with Gov. George Pataki, according to the New York Division of the FBI.
Devorah Halberstam, a political activist who spent decades fighting terrorism after her son’s assassination in 1994, has another son trapped in Israel after a Hamas attack this weekend. NY1 Israeli soldiers remove the bodies of Israeli residents from a destroyed house as fighting between the Israeli army and Islamist Hamas militants continues. ZUMAPRESS.com
The Brooklyn native also pushed for changes in gun control laws, and his work led Pataki to appoint him to the state’s first terrorism commission in the years after 9/11.
He has also served as chairman of the NYPD Public Hate Crimes Review Panel for more than a year.
But despite his efforts to fight the hatred and terror that the terrorists try to sow, it seems that he himself cannot escape his blackened claws.
Halberstam – who did not want to identify her son or provide any details about the family’s whereabouts for fear it would make them a target – said the ordeal abroad had left her “frozen in time.”
Halberstam’s son, Ari, was killed on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994 by a Lebanese man who shot into the van Ari was riding in. NY1 After his son’s death, Halberstam worked to tighten gun control laws and helped write anti-terrorism legislation. Tamara Beckwith
“My kids were there … so the world stopped for me,” she said. “I haven’t slept, and I can’t take my eyes off the news channel. I paid very close attention to every detail of what happened.”
“For me, it’s always been personal,” he added. “Right now, I am in a state of extreme fear. I know that it really can happen – because it has. I have lived and breathed this day and night, and I have done everything I can to raise awareness about it.”
But even for a veteran like Halberstam, the Hamas attack – which sparked a war that has killed more than a thousand on each side – is stunning in its brutality.
Ari was only 16 years old when he died. NY1
“It was quite surprising,” he said. “To be thirsty is to be kind about it … How can any human being do such a thing to anyone? What about babies and women?”
But this war taught an important lesson, he said: Terrorism is alive and well, and the fires of hatred burn brightly even as Western civilization tries to extinguish them.
“Terror never goes away,” he said. “It lives and breathes and it’s here to stay. And we cannot be complacent. It is an enemy we must fight forever.”
Halberstam said the astonishing brutality of the Hamas attack had shocked him. AFP via Getty Images
But that is a battle for another day. For now, Halberstam just wants his family home.
“I’m working on it,” he said. “And from minute to minute, the situation changes – the plane will take off, then it freezes, then there’s a rocket flying over the airport.”
“Hopefully I’ll see him back here soon,” he continued. “I just want to see him, and touch him, and see my grandson and my daughter-in-law. I want to see them all. They are my life. They are my life.”
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
