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The unofficial mayor of Queens’ Bukharian Jewish community gets a long-awaited honor

(New York Jewish Week) — Throughout his nearly 50 years living in Forest Hills, Queens, Gavriel Davidov was the unofficial mayor of the borough’s Bukharian Jewish community. He was widely known a peacekeeper, and the first person someone could turn to for help.

The owner of Gavriel Davidov Jewelry, a fine jeweler in Manhattan’s Diamond District on 47th Street, Davidov was among the first members of the Bukharian community — mostly Russian-speakers from Central Asia — to resettle in New York City. Seeking to escape Soviet restrictions on religious Jewish life and expression, Davidov, his wife Zoya and their four daughters — Ninel, Susan, Stella and Zhanna — immigrated from Tajikistan to New York in 1976.

By the time Davidov died in April 2020 at 85, the number of Bukharian Jews in New York had grown to over 50,000 people. And many of them had Davidov to thank for the strength of their community: Over the course of his life in the United States, he helped establish dozens of yeshivas, synagogues and community centers in Forest Hills and the surrounding neighborhoods. 

Last month, Davidov’s dedication to the Bukharian community — and his legacy of humility, leadership and honesty —  was honored by the City of New York with the co-naming of the corner of 64th Road and 108th Street, near the epicenter of Bukharian life in New York, as Gavriel Davidov Corner.

“He was the patriarch of our family and he was a pillar in the community,” Gabriella Kaplan, one of Davidov’s nine grandchildren, told the New York Jewish Week in a recent phone interview. “Whenever I’d walk down the street with him, everyone was his very best friend. You couldn’t get two feet because everyone had to stop him to say hello. It was so cool to see how much respect he had in the community and how much everyone loved him.”

“He is finally getting the recognition that he deserved,” said Kaplan, 28, who was one of about 10 people who spoke at the unveiling ceremony on Oct. 22.

According to Manashe Khaimov, an adjunct professor at Queens College specializing in Bukharian Jewish history and the founder of the Sephardic American Mizrahi Initiative, the city’s recognition of Davidov is a major step in acknowledging and celebrating Bukharian life in the United States. “It leaves our footprint on the history of New York,” he said.

“For the Bukharian youth and for the Bukharian people as a community, this is a big deal,” he added. “Living in Forest Hills, walking down the street in Forest Hills, to have a street named after a Bukharian person is an empowering moment.” 

For Davidov’s family, which also includes 11 great-grandchildren, the ceremony provided a bit of much-needed closure. Davidov died just as COVID-19 took hold in New York City and last month’s ceremony, said Kaplan, was “a celebration of his life that we didn’t necessarily get to have in the way that we should have when he passed.”

A prominent lawyer in Tajikistan, Davidov arrived with his family in the U.S. via Vienna and Israel. The family settled in a two-bedroom apartment in Forest Hills — the same apartment Davidov inhabited for the rest of his life. 

According to his daughter Susan Davidov Hod, they were the tenth Bukharian family to make their home in the neighborhood, which is now home to thousands of Bukharian Jews and dozens of synagogues.

Upon arriving in New York, despite being well-educated and fairly well-off in Tajikistan, Davidov found work as a taxi driver, a job he held for three years to support his family while learning English. According to favorite story passed down by the family, Davidov picked up a man from JFK Airport and told the passenger in broken English about his journey to the United States and his four girls at home. At the end of the day, he was cleaning out his car and realized the man had left his suitcase in the cab. 

“We opened it up — it was full of cash,” Hod recalled. Her father insisted he had to return it. 

Hod found a business card in the suitcase and they called the passenger. “My father didn’t speak English very well, so I talked,” Hod said. “My father drove back to him the next morning and gave him the full case. A week later, we got four or five boxes of clothing because the man knew that he had four daughters. He sent us the most fashionable clothes at the time.”

This type of honesty was typical of her father, Hod said, who was 18 when he opened his jewelry business in 1980 and she started working with him —  an experience she describes as “amazing.” 

Hod recalled how her father would help others get started in the jewelry business, sometimes signing on as a guarantor for loans. “People still owe him a lot of money,” she said. “But he never chased that. Not that he was a millionaire, believe me. But his heart was of gold.”

Davidov also quietly worked throughout his life to boost the Bukharian community, helping to establish two Orthodox synagogues, the Bukharian Jewish Community Center and Beth Gavriel Synagogue, as well as multiple yeshivas in the neighborhood.

“He planted the seeds for 35 Bukharian synagogues in New York City and united thousands of congregants,” said City Council member Lynn Schulman, who represents Forest Hills and its environs and who sponsored the legislation to co-name the street. “As a leader in the Bukharian community, Gavriel always gave of himself, never asking for anything in return. He has left an indelible mark in Forest Hills and throughout our city.”

“He was really the person that so many people in the Bukharian community came to. He was very quiet about it. He wasn’t public. He wasn’t looking for name recognition. But helped so many people that were new to the Bukharian community and Queens, whether they needed money or had a family emergency,” said Assembly Member David Weprin, who knew Davidov personally. “He was the person that people said: Go see Gavriel Davidov. He will help you.”


The post The unofficial mayor of Queens’ Bukharian Jewish community gets a long-awaited honor appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War

Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa

Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.

Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.

“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”

GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’

Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.

“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.

“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.

“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.

After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”

RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL

Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”

Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.

“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.

She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”

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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests

A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco

Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.

People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.

“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”

Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.

On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.

Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.

On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.

“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.

Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.

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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan

Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas

Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.

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