Hewlett Bay Park crash victim Allison Rahmani remembered as devoted mother, teacher and friend

A trip to Paris on Sunday with her husband was how Allison Rahmani had planned to celebrate her 40th birthday. Instead, Rahmani's husband, along with her many friends and relatives, spent the day mourning the mother of four's death after losing control of an SUV on Friday and plunging into a backyard pool in Hewlett Bay Park.

Rahmani, a Hewlett Bay Park resident who taught at Hebrew Academy of the Five Towns and Rockaway (HAFTR), "didn’t teach because she had to," said Shayna Ungar, Rahmani’s friend and a fellow teacher at HAFTR, during a memorial service Sunday morning at the Boulevard-Riverside Chapels in Hewlett. 

"She taught because she loved it," Ungar said.

The Nassau County Police Department said previously that about 9:30 a.m. on Friday, a woman later identified as Rahmani lost control of the 2023 GMC in the driveway of a home on Elinor Road, struck a tree and an unoccupied 2006 Honda before ending up "immersed in an in-ground pool." She was treated at the scene and later pronounced dead at a hospital, according a police news release Friday. The police are continuing to investigate the crash and had no updates Sunday about what may have led up to it.

At the memorial service, Rahmani, a mother of four young children, Chloe, Jake, Nathan and Zachary, was remembered as a fiercely passionate parent and teacher. The HAFTR website listed her as a "math coordinator."

Her husband, Matthew Rahmani, surprised her with a birthday Shabbat she had said was the best of her life — and a trip to Paris, with a flight booked for Sunday evening.

"Ally," he said Sunday, "I need you to tell me it’s going to be OK. I need your confidence. I need your strength."

Ungar described Allison Rahmani as "unbelievably competitive" when the two were pregnant at the same time.

"I was due first, she was due three weeks after me," Ungar said. "I called her from the hospital and said, ‘Ally, I’m here. I’m having the baby.’ "

But Rahmani wasn't ready to concede defeat. She finished parent-teacher conferences at HAFTR and started pacing up and down Palmyra Avenue in Woodmere, Ungar said.

"Somehow, we ended up in the hospital at the same time — across the hall from each other ... Then suddenly, a picture came through on my phone. It was Ally’s beautiful baby boy Zachary, and underneath it were two words: ‘I win.’ "

Many talked about Rahmani's "fiery personality," and how she was often the brightest light in a room.

"Around town, I was known as Mrs. Rahmani’s husband for as long as I can remember," Matthew Rahmani told the gathering.

Jamie Scharaga, Allison Rahmani’s older sister, joked that Rahmani copied her every step of the way.

"When I bought a house in the Five Towns and became a teacher, she bought a house in the Five Towns and became a teacher. I’ve been blond my whole life, and the last few years, suddenly so was she! I had three boys, she has three boys," Scharaga said.

"The truth is, I love how our lives follow each other from childhood to adulthood," she said. "I just never imagined hers would stop following mine."

Rabbi Binyomin Sloviter, of the Irving Place Minyan, a Modern Orthodox synagogue in Woodmere, closed the service by asking why a young mother was taken from her children far too soon.

"There are painful moments in life that, with enough time and perspective, we can understand. ... And then there are moments like this," the rabbi said.