It’s been nearly 30 years since a terrorist’s bullets first shattered Devorah Halberstam’s life.
Back then, in the final days of winter 1994, his 16-year-old son, Ari Halberstam, was savagely murdered on the Brooklyn Bridge by Rashid Baz, a Lebanese-born man who shot at the van in which Ari was traveling. along with 15 other Orthodox Jewish students.
Decades later, her family has been embroiled in another shocking tragedy: Hamas’ barbaric weekend attack on Israel, which has 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 the bomb shelters,” Halberstam told the Post. “They are rockets that continue to fall without stopping and the sirens continue to sound.”
“It’s pretty scary for them, but they stick together, as they should, for the little kids,” he continued. “And I’m doing everything I can to bring them home.”
It’s a terrifying turn for Halberstam, who launched into political activism after the murder of his eldest son. She was instrumental in the passage of the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001, which she worked on alongside then-Gov. George Pataki, according to the FBI’s New York Division.
Devorah Halberstam, a political activist who spent decades fighting terrorism after the murder of her son in 1994, has another son trapped in Israel after the Hamas attack this weekend. NY1 Israeli forces remove the bodies of Israeli residents from a destroyed house as fighting continues between Israeli troops and Islamist Hamas militants. ZUMAPRESS.com
The Brooklyn native also pushed for changes to gun control laws, and her work led Pataki to appoint her to the state’s first terrorism commission in the years after 9/11.
She has also served as chair of the NYPD’s Civilian Hate Crime Review Panel for over a year.
Follow The Post’s live blog for the latest on Hamas’ attack on Israel.
But despite her efforts to fight the hatred and horror that terrorists seek to sow, she herself cannot seem to escape their blackened clutches.
Halberstam, who did not want to identify her son or give any details about the family’s whereabouts for fear of making them a target, said the ordeal abroad left her “frozen in time.”
Halberstam’s son, Ari, was killed on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994 by a Lebanese man who shot at the van in which Ari was traveling. NY1 After the death of his son, Halberstam worked to tighten gun control laws and help draft anti-terrorism legislation. Tamara Beckwith
“My kids are there…so the world has stopped for me,” he said. “I haven’t slept and I can’t take my eyes off the media. “I am paying close attention to every detail of what is happening.”
“For me, it’s always been personal,” he added. “Right now I am in a state of great fear. I know it could really happen, because it did. “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 already killed more than a thousand people on each side – was shocking in its brutality.
Ari was only 16 years old when he died. NY1
“It’s pretty amazing,” he said. “Bloodthirsty is being nice about it… How could a human being inflict something like that on someone? Let alone babies and women?
But this war is teaching an important lesson, he said: that terrorism is alive and well, and that the fires of hate burn brightly despite Western civilization’s efforts to put them out.
“Terrorism has never disappeared,” he said. “He is living and breathing and is here to stay. And we must never become complacent. It is the enemy we will have to fight forever.”
Halberstam said the astonishing brutality of the Hamas attack surprised even her. AFP via Getty Images
But that’s a battle for another day. Right now, Halberstam just wants his family to be home.
“I’m working on it,” he said. “And minute by minute, things change: planes take off, then it freezes, and then there are rockets flying over airports.”
“Hopefully I will see him here again very, very soon,” he continued. “I just want to be able to look at it, touch it and see my grandchildren and my daughter-in-law. I want to see them all. Are my life. Are my life”.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn