NYC Chef & Survivor of Oct. 7 Hamas Massacre Opens Healing-Driven Restaurant in Chelsea

By: Fern Sidman

In a powerful act of resilience and hope, a New York City chef who survived the Hamas-led massacre on October 7, 2023, has opened a new restaurant in Chelsea, aiming to turn personal tragedy into a space for healing, connection, and cultural celebration. According to a report that appeared on Saturday in The New York Post, 40-year-old Raif Rashed, an Israeli-Druze chef, has launched Taboonia—a culinary tribute to his heritage and a testament to his will to heal through food and community.

As The New York Post reported, Rashed’s life was forever changed during the horrific attack at the Nova music festival in Israel, where he had been assisting his brother at a food stand. Now living in New York, he says opening Taboonia—an eatery serving traditional, scratch-made Druze cuisine—is a way to channel his grief into something nourishing and meaningful. “I lost many friends that day,” Rashed told The New York Post, referring to October 7 as his “second birthday,” a symbolic rebirth following the life-altering trauma he endured.

The Druze people—an Israel-aligned, Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious minority originating from Egypt nearly a millennium ago—are known for their strong communal bonds and unique traditions, as was noted in The Post report. Rashed’s restaurant, located on Sixth Avenue at West 29th Street, offers a rare opportunity for New Yorkers to experience Druze food and culture firsthand, just as Rashed experienced it growing up. The restaurant evolved from a food stall he launched at the Grand Bazaar on the Upper West Side on October 6, 2024, the day before the first anniversary of the massacre.

Rashed’s journey is one of profound personal loss and searing survivor’s guilt. On that tragic day, he witnessed unimaginable violence—people being lynched, rockets raining down, bullets flying. He ducked behind cars and tanks, fleeing with a group of festival attendees, including his close friend Erick Peretz and Peretz’s 16-year-old daughter Ruth, who used a wheelchair. Both were murdered by Hamas terrorists while embracing one another. Rashed still struggles with the weight of their deaths. “I let the people there down,” he told The New York Post. “I wanted to go back, I wanted to help them. But I can’t, I don’t know what to do.”

In another haunting account shared with The New York Post, Rashed recalled how, due to his U.S. phone service, he had one of the only phones still working during the chaos. A 19-year-old security guard, Rom Braslavski, asked to borrow it to call his mother—a call that turned out to be his last. Two months later, the boy’s mother called Rashed’s number, searching for her son. Braslavski is believed to be among the hostages still held by Hamas, The New York Post report said.

Despite the sorrow behind his story, Rashed has received overwhelming support from the New York community. Customers like Chelsea resident Liza Maltz were moved by his story and flocked to the restaurant to show solidarity. “The sheer horror of what he and so many innocent civilians endured is beyond comprehension,” she told The New York Post.

Rashed’s efforts have also gained attention through social media, particularly thanks to Israeli actress and activist Noa Tishby, who shared his story on Instagram. As The New York Post report noted, her post has brought even more visitors to Taboonia, many eager not only to enjoy the cuisine but also to support Rashed’s remarkable resilience.

Taboonia serves the same menu Rashed and his brother offered at the Nova festival: homemade bourekas, za’atar-dusted saj bread, labenah with pita, and warm chai tea—a sensory connection to the life he knew before the massacre. As he told The New York Post, “Something called me here, to do this. This is my home. I finally feel at home.”

Through food, remembrance, and cultural pride, Taboonia stands as more than just a restaurant—it is a living tribute to those lost, a refuge for a survivor, and a place where healing begins with every dish served.  Rashed is not just feeding people—he’s feeding hope.