The Virtual Jewish History Tour

Afghanistan

by Alden Oreck

Afghan Jewry may date back 2,700 years to the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile, but today only two known Jews remain in Afghanistan.

Several Jewish Afghan histories are circulating. Early biblical commentators regarded Khorasan as a location of the Ten Lost Tribes. Today, several Afghan tribes including the Durrani, Yussafzai, Afridi and Pashtun believe they are decedents of King Saul. They call themselves Bani-Israel, similar to the Hebrew, B'nai Israel, meaning the children of Israel. Even some Muslim scholars and writers accept this. The exiled Afghan Royal family also traces its roots to ancient Israel, the tribe of Benjamin specifically. As evidence, they cite Makhzan-i-Afghani , a chronicle published in 1635, in the time of King Jahangir by Khawaja Nimatullah of Herat.

The Pashtun, the main Afghan ethnic group and Taliban supporters, also believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel , and later converted to Islam. Dozens of Pashtun names and customs sound Jewish, from the Pashtun tribe names of Asheri and Naftali to the Pashtun custom of a wedding chupah and the circumcising of the sons on the eighth day after birth. The Pashtuns claim that the city of Kabul stands for "Cain and Abel" and Afghanistan is derived from "Afghana," the grandson of King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin.

Another book, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the 7th century, a people called Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat. According to Taaqati-Nasiri as well as Pashtun legend, the Bani Israel soon accepted Islam, after their leader, Qais, met with the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.

Other reports tell of Persian Jews rejecting Islam and fleeing the Muslim conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries and settling in Afghanistan. In 1080, Moses ibn Ezra mentioned more than 40,000 Jews paying tribute in Ghazni, a great city on the River Gozan. Benjamin of Tudela, writing approximately 100 years later, echoed this claim, adding that there were 80,000 Jews living there.

Stone tablets with Hebrew inscriptions dating from 1115 to 1215 confirm the existence of a Jewish community in Firoz Koh, located between Herat and Kabul. Genghis Kahn's 1222 Mongol invasion, however, razed Afghanistan, devastating the Jewish communities. Little is known about the small and isolated Jewish community of Afghanistan that remained until the 19th century.

In 1839, thousands of Jews again fled Persia, where the Muslim authorities began forcibly converting them, bringing Afghanistan's Jewish population up to 40,000. They were mostly traders and dyers dealing in skins, carpets and antiquities.

The decline came in 1870 after Afghan Muslim authorities enacted anti-Jewish measures, triggering a mass exodus to Central Asia, Persia and Palestine. The 1933 assassination of King Nadit Shah triggered another anti-Jewish campaign. Jews were banished from most Afghan cities, limiting them to Kabul, Balkh or Herat. In addition, Jews were forbidden to leave town without a permit and forced to pay special taxes.

By the time Israel was created in 1948, approximately 5,000 Jews remained in Afghanistan, but they could not legally immigrate. Once the restriction was lifted in 1951, most Afghan Jews made their way to Israel. By 1969, only 300 Jews lived in Afghanistan, most of whom left in 1979 after the Soviet invasion. In 1996, 10 Jews remained in Afghanistan, nearly all in Kabul.

In 2005, there were two Jews in Afghanistan. Zebulon Simentov and Isaac Levy lived at separate ends of the same decaying synagogue in Kabul. The synagogue was built 40 years earlier and probably avoided being destroyed by the Taliban because it was unassuming, deserted, and in disrepair. Simentov and Levy said they were protecting the synagogue, and each claimed to be the rightful owner of the Torah and accused the other of stealing it. This feud was so heated that both men spent time in Taliban jails for charges they brought against each other, and were beaten with electric cables and rifle butts. Meanwhile, the Taliban confiscated the Torah. Levy relied on charity to get by, while Simentov, 41, owned a store that sold carpets, jewelry and handicrafts. Both men said they got along with their Muslim neighbors.

Levy said he wanted to join his family in Israel, but couldn't afford to leave. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Jewish groups offered to help Levy emigrate, but he refused. In January 2005, Levy died.

Now Simentov is the last Jew in Afghanistan. In 2001, he said the Taliban stoll all his supplies and he had to close his store. He says he now has nothing and lives “like a dog.” He has devoted himself to trying to recover the Torah stolen by the Taliban, and enlisted the help of the U.S. Embassy and Afghan Interior Ministry. He said he was told the man who stole the Torah is now in U.S. custody in Cuba. Simentov's wife and two daughters live in Israel and, after Levy's death, said he was considering joining his family.

More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent now live in Israel. The second largest population of Afghan Jews is New York, with 200 families. They mostly live in Flushing, Jamaica and Queens. Rabbi Jacob Nasirov leads the Orthodox congregation of Anshei Shalom, the lone Afghan synagogue in the United States. Members have roots not only from Afghanistan, but also Yemen, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Morocco and Lebanon.