The Alliance of Bukharian Americans (ABA) had a real busy past two weeks. We have so much going on in our area, and we are proud to report that our local communities are beginning to get involved in the decisions that will truly affect their welfare. Just over the past two weeks, the Queens Bukharian community was visited by three candidates running for the office of Public Advocate; a candidate running for District Attorney; the NYC Commission on Human Rights; and also had representation at the annual Queens Jewish Community Council (QJCC) Legislative Breakfast. Let’s break some of these down.
With only a few days until local elections (February 26th), the race for Public Advocate is really heating up. Theoretically speaking, the Public Advocate of NYC serves as a check on the Mayor. This means that if, say, the public in Manhattan Brooklyn and Queens are unhappy with the Mayor’s closed door, dark of the night decision to implant massive criminal jails in each of the boroughs, they look to the Public Advocate to apply pressure. As New Yorkers, we often assume that our only gavel over the Mayor is Election Day. But actually, whoever we choose as Public Advocate can make a great difference by choosing to exercise their role in the political process.
On Sunday February 3rd the ABA sat with current Councilman and PA candidate Eric Ulrich. Though the current race is a special election avoiding party lines, Eric remains the sole republican contender in a sea of democratic hopefuls. A few weeks ago, Eric introduced his program to the Bukharian Community at Shalom and Victoria Zirkiev’s wildly successful fundraiser. On Sunday, Eric reiterated his belief that each community and faith retains the right to determine education for its youth. He also discussed his willingness to actuate the role of Public Advocate, and finally hold “this Mayor’s feet to the fire”.
The next candidate we met for the office of Public Candidate was Assemblyman Michael Blake. Michael is also the Vice Chair of the Democratic National Committee. Similar to Ulrich, Assemblyman Blake aired criticism of the Mayor’s unchecked decision-making. Michael also spoke about the different steps he would take with regards to the Mayor’s behavior in the NYCHA scandal, such as firing the one person meant to be a check over his office’s behavior. He also highlighted his stance with the criminal justice system in New York, especially about current jail culture and increased transparency in policing.
The Public Advocate candidate we next met was Assemblyman Ron Kim. The meeting was organized by and took place in Chazaq’s office, which really gave the Assemblyman a chance to feel what goes on in the community’s social sphere. Ron focused a lot on the financial woes of the city’s inhabitants. He discussed his plan to “put people over corporations” and fundamentally change the way the city invests taxpayer money. He also discussed his aspirations to transform the office of Public Advocate into the “first government office dedicated to canceling private debt, starting with New York’s distressed student loans”. He gave an in-depth talk about the unfair loan terms dealt to students, and also emphasized the broader economic benefits of comprehensive loan forgiveness.
On February 6th, the ABA sat with a representative from NYC’s Commission on Human Rights. The commission has broad and often creative powers for combating violations of human rights, such as Anti-Semitic attacks and discriminatory behavior. We went over many of the concerning local occurrences and discussed some of the services offered by the Commission. We discussed ways to disseminate information about the rights of every citizen in the community. These include privileges beyond the protection granted by the police precinct and civil recourse beyond investigations by the crimes department. We also discussed methods which can be utilized to help existing victims of human rights violations, including lawsuits for medical expenses.
The ABA also made a point of attending the Queens Jewish Community Council’s Legislative Breakfast on February 3rd. The QJCC has been instrumental in the integration of many Jewish immigrants in NYC, many of them being Bukharian immigrants from parts of Europe, the Middle East, and Central Asia. Our community has a great deal of appreciation for the wonderful social work done by this organization. Their work has been instrumental in the success of the Bukharian community of Queens, in ways many of us don’t even know about. We were proud to attend a legislative breakfast for an organization which is a standard-bearer of Jewish Advocacy; for an organization which stands up for local needs.
The Alliance of Bukharian Americans will continue to stand up for local issues. If you have any questions, ideas, comments or concerns, please contact us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
By Adam Suionov
Representation Begins At Home
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