Nova Festival survivor opens Druze restaurant in NYC: ‘Part of my journey, to heal myself’
A New York City chef who survived the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre at the hands of Hamas has launched a new restaurant in the heart of Chelsea that he says is part of his healing process.
Israeli-Druze culinarian Raif Rashed, 40, told The Post living through the day’s horror inspired him to open up Taboonia, an eatery where he serves traditional and authentic Druze food — all made from scratch. The Israel-aligned Druze are an insular Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious minority who originated in Egypt roughly 1,000 years ago as an offshoot of Islam.
“I lost many friends that day,” said Rashed, who refers to Oct. 7 as his “second birthday,” considering the life-altering impact the terror attack had on him. “[Taboonia] is part of my journey, to heal myself.
“I want to make connections between people, with good, healthy food.”
Taboonia opened last month on Sixth Avenue at West 29th Street, following its first iteration as a stall at the Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side, which he started on Oct. 6, 2024.
Rashed, who served with the Israel Defense Force, was helping his brother operate a food stand at the Nova music festival the day of the terror attack. He recalled spending hours looking for his brother, believing he’d been killed.
His brother survived and lives in Israel.
Rashed talked about seeing people being lynched, rockets flooding the skies, ducking behind cars and under tanks to escape the barrage of bullets, and running from the gunfire with some 30 festival attendees — including one of his best friends, Erick Peretz, who was there with his daughter, Ruth,16, who is wheelchair-bound.
The father and daughter were murdered by Hamas terrorists while they hugged, and Rashed continues to struggle with survivor’s guilt.
“I let the people there down,” he said. “I wanted to go back, I wanted to help them. But I can’t, I don’t know what to do.”
Since he’d come from America and had international service, Rashed had one of the only phones still getting reception. He said Rom Braslavski, a 19-year-old security guard, at one point asked to use his phone to call his mother.
“That was the last call he made to her,” Rashed said, recalling how she called his number two months later, looking for her boy. “They took him.”
Braslavski is believed to still be alive, but remains a hostage of Hamas.
Customers are embracing Rashed and his restaurant.
“When I heard Raif’s story — his survival of the terrorist attack at the Nova Festival — I knew I had to go and show my support,” said Liza Maltz of Chelsea. “The sheer horror of what he and so many innocent civilians endured is beyond comprehension.”
Since opening Taboonia’s doors, Rashed has already enjoyed a groundswell of support from New Yorkers who follow Israeli actress and activist Noa Tishby. She shared Rashed’s harrowing story on Instagram, inspiring dozens of visits.
The restaurant offers the same food he and his brother were serving at the Nova festival, including bourekas, pita labenah, za’atar, chai tea and saj bread.
“Something called me here, to do this,” Rashed told The Post. “This is my home. I finally feel at home.”
