Latest news with #KehliatSephardimof

Miami Herald

Girls in Fort Lauderdale watercraft tragedy are prominent New York rabbi's kids

The teenage girl killed and the girl seriously injured in Tuesday's Fort Lauderdale personal watercraft crash are daughters of a rabbi and rebbitzin prominent in Queens, New York's Bukharian Jewish community, according to social media posts and online databases. Tuesday night posts from Instagram account bukhariancommunity identified the 14-year-old girl killed as Rachel Aliza Nisanov and her 16-year-old sister as Aviva Bracha Nisanov, daughters of Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov and Rebbitzin Ora Nisanov. Authorities have not released the names of the girls. Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov heads the Bukharian Jewish synagogue Kehliat Sephardim of Ahavat Achim, which runs a popular food pantry that distributes kosher food to all communities. Ora Nisanov's biography on the website for Bat Melech community center, where she works, , says Rachel and Aviva are two of the Nisanovs' eight children. Both girls attended Bnos Malka Academy, an all-girls yeshiva in Forest Hills about two and a half miles from the family's Kew Gardens Hill home and where their parents were honored in 2023 at the school's annual dinner. According to Fort Lauderdale Fire Rescue's Frank Guzman, Rachel and Aviva were riding tandem on a personal watercraft on the Intracoastal Waterway near the 2800 block of Northeast 24th Court in Fort Lauderdale when they smashed into a dock around 3:30 p.m. Paramedics rushed the sisters to Broward Medical Center, where Rachel died Tuesday evening, said Arielle Callender, spokesperson for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Her sister Aviva is in critical condition in the ICU, a spokesperson for Broward Medical said Wednesday. FWC is leading the crash investigation. The crash comes just two weeks and a day after a barge struck a sailboat with Miami Yacht Club summer campers. Two girls died within hours, and a third girl died two days later at Jackson Memorial Hospital. READ MORE: A third child in the Biscayne Bay barge-sailboat crash has died, yacht club says