NEW YORK – Police are offering a US$12,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the  masked gunman who killed a Jamaican-born Orthodox Jew at a kosher liquor store on Thursday.

Police said that Yoseph Robinson, 34, a clerk at the store, was killed when he tried to protect his girlfriend, Lahava Wallace, who was being robbed of her jewelry at gunpoint.

They said that Robinson took bullets in the chest and arm and died behind the counter.

Wallace, who was helping Robinson write a book, said they were joking around and laughing when the gunman entered the store demanding her jewelry.

Wallace said Robinson yelled, “Leave her alone” and approached the man. She said a struggle broke out, and he was shot.

Police has released video footage showing the clerk trying to disarm the intruder.

Wallace said she began dating Wallace - a former hip hop mogul turned Orthodox-Jewish convert - about a month ago.

Police said Robinson’s remarkable journey from petty criminal to rap impresario to observant Jew began in Jamaica.  

Along the way, friends and relatives said Robinson touched dozens of lives and made believers out of skeptics who said a black man with his past had no business being an Orthodox Jew.

Robinson, who once made music about mayhem, started using verses from the Torah to pen hip-hop songs. He was also writing a book about his conversion when his life was cut short.

He was born Chester Robinson and raised by his grandmother in Spanish Town, Jamaica. At age 12, Robinson joined his parents in the United States.

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