For Kurdish Americans In Nashville, A Beloved Leader's Death Prompts Vaccine Push

On a sloppy spring day in mid-March, hundreds of Kurdish Americans gathered in a field outside Nashville under a sea of black umbrellas. Some of the men carried a stretcher to an open grave, where a yellow backhoe waited.

In accordance with Muslim tradition, the body of Imad Doski — a prominent community leader — was buried within 24 hours of his death. He was another casualty of COVID-19.

"It hit people. They saw it happen to one of them," says Faiza Rashid, a nurse practitioner at the Amed Family Clinic, the Kurdish-run medical practice in town. "It hit home."

Doski's death just six weeks ago became a wakeup call for many in Nashville's Kurdish community — the largest in the U.S. The community has been growing and thriving since a wave of Kurdish refugees started arriving 30 years ago, fleeing Saddam Hussein and the Gulf War.

Doski was part of that early wave of immigrants, and he helped start the Salahadeen Center, which serves as a mosque, religious school and community center for Nashville-area Kurds.