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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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‘Child Killers’: Jewish Activists Doused With Red Paint in Germany While Hanging Up Hostage Posters
i24 News – Masked attackers doused with red paint and shoved German Jewish activists hanging up posters of the Israeli hostages held in Gaza in Frankfurt on Friday. The assailants shouted “child killers” and “free Palestine.”
Sacha Stawski, a German-Jewish activist who heads the media watchdog NGO Honestly Concerned, who’s spent decades combating antisemitism, spoke to local media about the incident.
“We attached posters with photos of the 50 hostages still in Hamas’s captivity to a fence in the Frankfurt Grüneburgpark,” Stawski told the Bild outlet. “We were branded ‘child killers,’ and I constantly heard ‘Free Palestine,’ and ‘genocide’ calls.”
The paint also poured over my glasses, making it difficult for me to identify the perpetrator,” he added.
Germany’s ambassador to Israel condemned the incident.
The small pro-hostage rally took place near an anarchist encampment housing several anti-Israel organizations. Stawski said this was announced to the camp organizers.
Meanwhile a German government spokesman said on Friday that Berlin currently has no plans to recognize a Palestinian state because that would undermine any efforts to reach a negotiated solution with Israel.
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Hegseth Fires Head of Intel Agency Whose Assessment of Damage from Iran Strikes Angered Trump
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on US President Donald Trump’s budget request for the Department of Defense, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, US, June 11, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
i24 News – US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired a general whose agency’s initial intelligence assessment of damage to Iranian nuclear sites from US strikes sparked the ire of President Donald Trump.
Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, US media reported, citing sources speaking on condition of anonymity.
The sacking is the latest upheaval in military leadership and in the country’s intelligence agencies, and comes a few months after details of the preliminary assessment leaked to the media.
The assessment found that Iran’s nuclear program has been set back only a few months by the bombings, contradicting assertions from Trump and from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The Republican president, who had pronounced the Iranian program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejected the report.
n June, Israel launched a devastating bombing campaign against Iran’s nuclear program, missile production and military leadership, saying the operation was necessary to prevent the mullah regime from realizing its oft-stated plan to annihilate the Jewish state.
During the ensuing 12-day war, the US joined in, striking key Iranian nuclear sites.
Following the June strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites, Hegseth lambasted the press for focusing on the preliminary assessment but did not offer any direct evidence of the destruction of the facilities.
“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated — choose your word. This was a historically successful attack,” Hegseth said at a news conference at the time.
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Amid Rising Antisemitism, American Jews Make Aliyah to Israel Seeking Safety, Community, Impact
Olim gather at JFK Airport in New York, preparing to board Nefesh B’Nefesh’s 65th charter flight to Israel. Photo: The Algemeiner
NEW YORK/TEL AVIV — Confronted with rising antisemitism and unease in the United States, a growing number of American Jews are choosing to make aliyah, embracing the risks of war in the Middle East for the chance to build new lives and foster meaningful communities.
On Wednesday, 225 new olim arrived in Tel Aviv on the first charter aliyah flight since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Aliyah refers to the process of Jews immigrating to Israel, and olim refers to those who make this journey.
Nefesh B’Nefesh (NBN) — a nonprofit that promotes and facilitates aliyah from the US and Canada — brought its 65th charter flight from New York, which The Algemeiner joined.
Founded in 2002, NBN helps olim become fully integrated members of Israeli society, simplifying the aliyah process and providing essential resources and guidance.
In partnership with Israel’s Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the Jewish Agency for Israel, Keren Kayemeth, and the Jewish National Fund, NBN has helped nearly 100,000 olim build thriving new lives in Israel.
Shawn Fink is one of the 225 people who embarked on the life-changing journey earlier this week, leaving Cleveland, Ohio, with his wife, Liz, and their son.
For Fink and his family, making aliyah was driven not only by their love for Israel and desire to build a new community, but also by the escalating threats and uncertainties facing Jewish communities abroad since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
“Mostly, we were frustrated with the direction the United States is taking, and the rise in antisemitism was a major concern for us,” Fink told The Algemeiner.
Like many countries around the world, the US has seen an alarming rise in antisemitic incidents and anti-Israel sentiment since the Oct. 7 atrocities.
According to the latest data issued by the FBI, hate crimes perpetrated against Jews increased by 5.8 percent in 2024 to 1,938, the largest total recorded in over 30 years of the federal agency’s counting them.
A striking 69 percent of all religion-based hate crimes that were reported to the FBI in 2024 targeted Jews, who constitute just 2 percent of the US population, with 2,041 out of 2,942 total such incidents being antisemitic in nature. Muslims were targeted the next highest amount as the victims of 256 offenses, or about 9 percent of the total.
Fink explained that the increasing costs of living a Jewish life in the US — from education to kosher food — weighed heavily on his family’s decision to make the move to Israel.
While they first considered making aliyah five years ago, Fink and his family had to put the plans on hold for personal reasons — returning to the idea only in the past few months when the timing finally worked in their favor.
“We started planning it seriously in November and began the entire process with Nefesh B’Nefesh,” Fink told The Algemeiner. “It’s been a nonstop whirlwind ever since.”
For them, the current war did not stop their plans, but it did influence the cities they explored for their new home.
“The war really reinforced for us the importance of supporting Israel and our community,” Fink said. “By making aliyah, we felt we could do even more to help.”
Even though it is difficult to leave behind family and close friends, they look forward to reconnecting with friends in Israel, making new connections, and building a vibrant new community.
“Making aliyah in less than six months has been a whirlwind. I’d encourage anyone considering it to give themselves at least twice as much time, double the budget, and be prepared for plenty of unexpected starts and stops along the way,” Fink told The Algemeiner.
Nefesh B’Nefesh provides assistance to families throughout their entire aliyah journey, offering guidance before relocating and continued support once in Israel.
The Israeli government also complements these efforts with resources and financial incentives to help newcomers settle and ease their transition into their new lives.
“Once the ticket is finally in your hand and you’re waiting to board the plane, you realize that all the challenges and obstacles along the way were worth it,” Fink said.
Veronica Zaragovia was also one of the 225 olim who joined the flight earlier this week.
Similarly to Fink and his family, Zaragovia decided to make aliyah, driven not just by her love for Israel, but also by the increasing challenges of being Jewish abroad and the hope of making a meaningful impact by serving her community.
From Florida, she embarked on the journey alone, excited for all the new opportunities and possibilities that awaited her in her new home.
“I want to take pride in being Jewish and in Israel — that’s why I’m making aliyah,” she told The Algemeiner, reflecting on the move she has been planning for the past two years.
“It’s a huge concern for me that in some places in the US, I can’t — or maybe shouldn’t — wear my Star of David necklace,” she said. “I don’t feel that Jews can be fully safe anywhere in the country. The rise in antisemitism has been truly shocking and deeply concerning.”
Zaragovia, who worked as a journalist in the US, said her love for storytelling and uncovering the truth played a key role in her decision to make this move.
“After Oct. 7, I felt that the way my colleagues and other journalists were covering Israel was wrong and unfair,” she said.
“As someone whose career is built on facts and truth, I didn’t see that reflected in their reporting. That’s why I decided to make a difference by being there myself,” she continued.
Rather than deterring her decision to make a change, Zaragovia explained that the current war only reinforced it.
“It became clear that I needed to go, be there with my people, and make a difference through my work,” she said. “I couldn’t have done this without Nefesh B’Nefesh. They’ve been incredible, guiding me every step of the way from start to finish.”