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A new program addresses a growing opioid crisis in the Bukharian community
(New York Jewish Week) — No one can say exactly how many members of New York City’s Bukharian Jewish community have died of opioid overdoses in the last few years, but everyone agrees that the numbers are distressingly high.
Hiski Mierov, vice president of the Bukharian Jewish Community Center in Forest Hills, Queens, can think of 20 or so young people who have died in the last seven years, a steep toll on an immigrant community of about 50,000. “I would estimate the number is much higher,” he said.
David Aronov, who grew up in the community and now serves as its liaison at UJA-Federation of New York, offered an even more sobering estimate: “several dozen” overdose deaths in just the last five years.
“The community is so tight-knit that when one of these deaths does happen, it spreads really, really fast,” Aronov told the New York Jewish Week. “After a large number of deaths within a small amount of time, for the size of the community, you know that it is a really big issue.”
Now, Aronov and Mierov are playing leading roles in an effort to turn things around. A dozen synagogues in Queens neighborhoods with many Bukharian Jewish residents are newly stocking Narcan, a lifesaving drug that reverses overdoses, and training volunteers on how to administer it.
They are also planning community education on drug use and overdose response, with the goal of reducing the stigma of addiction.
“Everybody in the community has either been touched by this issue or knows someone that has been touched, but people don’t want to reach out for help,” Aronov, who is at the helm of this program and worked with UJA-Federation to launch it, said. “We want individuals in the community to be more open and talk about the issue… and we want to make sure that stigma is not preventing individuals from getting the help that they need.”
The “Save a Life” program is a collaboration among UJA-Federation, the New York City Department of Health and the Jewish Board, a Jewish health and human services nonprofit that is licensed to distribute Narcan. Their goal is to curb an acute crisis within one community that has been affected by an 80% increase in overdose rates within New York City since 2019.
While there is no reliable data on drug-related overdoses specifically in Jewish communities, it is clear that they have not been spared from the skyrocketing rate of overdoses across the country in recent years as dangerous street drugs, often laced with fentanyl, have replaced prescription pain pills as the most widely available opioids.
But people within the Bukharian Jewish community — immigrants from Central Asia — say they can see particular risk factors for drug abuse within their community.
Many parents spend much of their time working, Mierov said, and there can be a lack of communication between children and their parents and a lack of supervision for young people, which the Centers for Disease Control says is a risk factor for substance abuse in youth. A deepening disconnect between generations who grew up in different worlds, with different responsibilities and resources, could also make it hard to address drug abuse, Mierov said.
“The parents are oblivious to what’s going on because the kids are always out with their friends. They come home late, and parents are busy working. Like many immigrant families that come to this country, they live paycheck to paycheck — the father has two jobs, the mother has two jobs. They’re never home,” he said.
Aronov added that in many of these immigrant families, children can feel “an immense amount of pressure,” to do well in school, get married early and earn money to support their families and parents.
In some cases, parents don’t want to discuss the issue for fear of being judged by others in the community, Mierov explained.
“They feel embarrassed to reach out to people that are in the community. They have a fear of not being able to marry off their children in the community because of things that happened in the past,” he said.
Around 60,000 Bukharian Jews live in New York City, with major hubs in Forest Hills and the surrounding Queens neighborhoods. (Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
“They don’t understand that these kids are dying from their silence,” said Jack Musheyev, 35, who grew up in the community and is in recovery from drug addiction.
Musheyev was 9 and living in Forest Hills, the main hub of New York’s Bukharian community, when he drank alcohol for the first time. At 12, he started smoking weed everyday. By junior year of high school, he started using harder drugs like cocaine, which led to skipping school to get high and often getting into fights.
His mother, who like many others in the community immigrated in the 1980s, eventually sent him to Miami to finish high school with the hope that, outside his circle in Queens, he would be less inclined to fall into trouble. But it would take another decade before Musheyev entered rehab and got sober.
“I witnessed a lot of abuse in my family between the parents and what that led me to is to find peace outside with my friends,” Musheyev said. “What that entailed was smoking weed, drinking. It was helping me cope with my feelings and suppress them in the real world.”
For Musheyev, the new initiative is “a great approach,” but he thinks even more can be done, like opening up 12-step chapters in Bukharian communities in Queens and providing mental health services for people in the community who are struggling as he did.
“We need to get more therapy for these kids, we need AA meetings and materials, a place where they can go every single hour to hear somebody with some clean time to share their story,” he said, adding what they need more is “love, hope and inspiration.”
In addition to trainings, Aronov is also implementing a public affairs campaign. Educational flyers and videos in both English and Russian about Narcan and the resources UJA is offering are being distributed on social media and WhatsApp.
“What they did with this program is bring people in Forest Hills, Queens, closer together,” said Mierov, who is the UJA’s point person for distributing the free Narcan kits and trainings at BJCC, a synagogue, community center and Hebrew school in the heart of the neighborhood.
He said getting to work with the other participating locations had helped him feel some of the same relief that he hoped would spread to families in his community.
“There’s no more shame where you are wondering, ‘Oh my god, is this only happening with the families that are affiliated with our center? Are we doing something wrong? Are we not doing enough?’” Mierov said. “It’s nice to have this support system where you can reach out to other synagogues in the same city and kind of talk things out and figure out different perspectives and ways to handle the situation.”
The 11 other synagogues and community centers participating in the program are in other Queens neighborhoods with large Bukharian populations — Rego Park, Fresh Meadows, Flushing, Jamaica Estates, Kew Gardens and Corona. Each of them will get kits that include two naloxone (Narcan) nasal sprays, gloves, alcohol pads and how-to information, and volunteers will learn how to use the supplies.
Aronov has appointed a “point person” at each of the 12 locations to give out the Narcan kits.
“One of the things I make sure that I come across when I speak to people is that there’s no judgment,” said Ahuva Lilliana Yelizarov, who runs the Forest Hills synagogue Anshey Shalom with her husband, and who has already deployed several Narcan kits in the community.
“It doesn’t discriminate, unfortunately,” she said about addiction. “It impacts everyone, whether you’re a secular Jew, or you’re an Orthodox Jew. So unfortunately, we have to step it up and do what needs to be done.”
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The post A new program addresses a growing opioid crisis in the Bukharian community appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.