Kanisoi Kalon Sukkot Services Draw 400+ Across Two Synagogue Sukkahs

This report was translated from Russian by Bukharian Jewish Post from coverage by The Bukharian Times.

Sukkot 2026 began on Sept. 26 at Kanisoi Kalon, the main synagogue of the Bukharian Jewish Community Center in Forest Hills, with more than 400 men, women, and youth packing the halls and two on-site sukkahs, Boris Babaev wrote for The Bukharian Times.

Services were led by Chief Rabbi Baruch Babaev with Rabbis Asher Vaknin, David Shushan, Zalman Zavulunov, and Yitzchak Volovik, and with chazzanim Israel Ibragimov and Abo Cohen. Congregants prepared arba minim carefully and used two sukkahs: one on the third-floor terrace for the youth minyan and another at the center entrance for the broader kehillah.

Babaev noted how American backyard sukkahs often look simpler than the harvest-laden booths many elders remember from Central Asia—willow, grapevine, pomegranates, quince, and melons—yet the Forest Hills synagogue still offers a communal roof for families without private yards.

The report closed by looking ahead to Shemini Atzeret, Hoshana Rabbah, and Simchat Torah—the next chapter of the same Tishrei cycle later marked by the synagogue’s Oct. 4 Hotoni banquet.

For Queens Bukharian readers, the Sukkot attendance figure and dual-sukkah setup document how Kanisoi Kalon functions as a high-holiday home base on 70th Avenue.

Sources: The Bukharian Times (Russian).