Appeals for Calm Follow N.Y. Rites for Slain Student
In the wake of a shooting attack on ultra-Orthodox Jewish students, New York-area Arab and Jewish leaders appealed for calm Sunday after the funeral of a slain Jewish student.
About 5,000 members of the Hasidic Lubavitch community shut down traffic in part of Brooklyn as 16-year-old rabbinical student Aaron Halberstam was eulogized as a “sacrificial lamb.”
Halberstam died four days after he was wounded in Tuesday’s shooting on the Brooklyn Bridge.
Lebanese-born taxi driver Rashad Baz, 28, was charged in the shooting that wounded three others in a van carrying 15 Hasidic students back from a hospital visit. Hlal Mohammad, 32, and Bassam Reyati, 27, both Jordanians living in Brooklyn, were charged with hindering prosecution and weapons possession by helping Baz dispose of the guns and the car.
Police said Baz will likely be charged with murder.
Mohammad Mehdi, head of the American Arab Relations Committee in New York, met Sunday with City Councilman Noach Dear, a Jewish community leader, hours after Halberstam’s funeral. They said the meeting was an attempt at dialogue between New York’s Muslim and Jewish communities.
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