The U.S. Justice Department said that if the murder of Jewish teenager Ari Halberstam had taken place today, the case would have been investigated as a federal hate crime and a civil rights violation. The recognition came more than three decades after the Brooklyn Bridge attack in which Halberstam was murdered at age 16.
The statement was made in a letter sent July 23 to Devorah Halberstam, the mother of the late Ari, who for years waged a public and legal campaign for recognition that her son was murdered because of antisemitic hatred. The letter was sent by Jay Clayton, the former U.S. attorney, after he discussed the matter with his successor, Jamie McDonald.
Ari Halberstam was killed in a shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1994
“There is no doubt that if the murder of your son, Ari Halberstam, had occurred today, we would investigate it and seek to prosecute it as a federal hate crime,” Clayton wrote. He said both he and the current U.S. attorney agreed on how the case would be handled if it occurred today.
Ari Halberstam was murdered March 1, 1994, when Rashid Baz, a Lebanese-born taxi driver, opened fire on a vehicle carrying Chabad yeshiva students on the Brooklyn Bridge. Halberstam, who was on his way with his friends to Chabad headquarters in Brooklyn, was critically wounded and died of his injuries.
Baz was convicted of murder and sentenced to 141 years in prison. He died in prison in 2023. For years, the Halberstam family argued that the motive was hatred of Jews, but at the time the incident was not classified as a hate crime in the federal system as it would be today.
Devorah Halberstam told The Forward that the letter gives her hope that the federal government is committed to fighting antisemitic violence. “With the rise in hatred in the United States and around the world, I am very concerned for the safety of New York’s Jews,” she said. “I will continue to fight so that no mother has to bury her son because of hatred, as I was forced to do.”
Alongside the recognition of the case, the U.S. Justice Department said it would allocate additional resources to the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes in New York City, against the backdrop of a rise in antisemitic incidents.
According to New York Police Department data published this week, the number of antisemitic incidents in the city rose 8.5% in the first seven months of 2026 compared with the same period last year. Jews were targeted in 57% of all hate crimes recorded in the city this year, and in July alone, antisemitic incidents rose 53% compared with July 2025.
New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani addressed the rise in hate crime figures and called them “unacceptable.” He said the city had increased the budget of the Office for the Prevention of Hate Crimes by 800%. “The fight to uproot antisemitism from the city will continue until hate crimes disappear,” he said.