Afghan Jews

افغان یهودان יהודי אפגניסטן‎
Jewish cemetery in the city ofHerat, 2009
Total population
10,300+
Regions with significant populations
Israel	10,000
United States	200+
United Kingdom	100
Afghanistan	0[1]
Languages
Hebrew,Dari Persian,Tajik Persian, andPashto
Religion
Judaism
Related ethnic groups
Iranian Jews andBukharian Jews

Part ofa series of articles on
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History ofAfghanistan
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Thehistory of the Jews in Afghanistan goes back at least 2,500 years.Ancient Iranian tradition suggests thatJews settled inBalkh, aZoroastrian andBuddhist stronghold at the time. TheKingdom of Judah collapsed in 587 BCE leading to this migration.^[2] In more recent times, the community has beenreduced to complete extinction.^[3][4]

At the time of the large-scale2021 Taliban offensive, only two Jews were still residing in the country:Zablon Simintov and his distant cousin Tova Moradi. When theIslamic Emirate of Afghanistan was re-established by theTaliban in August 2021, both Simintov and Moradi madealiyah on 7 September 2021 and 29 October 2021, respectively, leaving Afghanistan completely empty of Jews. A branch ofPersian-Jewry, the overwhelming majority of the Afghan Jewish community today resides in Israel, with a small group of a few hundred living in theUnited States and theUnited Kingdom.

In Afghanistan, the Jews had formed a community ofleather andkarakul merchants, landowners, andmoneylenders.^{[citation needed]} Jewish families mostly lived in the cities ofHerat andKabul, while their patriarchs traveled back and forth on trading trips acrossCentral Asia andIran. They carved their prayers inHebrew andAramaic on mountain rocks as they moved between the routes of theSilk Road.^[2]

Existing records of a Jewish presence in Afghanistan date back to the 7th century CE,^[3] although ancient Iranian tradition holds that there was a Jewish presence in Afghanistan as early as the time ofIsrael and Judah. There are alsoorigin theories among somePashtuns that claim their descent from theTen Lost Tribes of theIsraelites. The town ofBalkh was a major center of Jewish life inancient Afghanistan; someIslamic traditions hold that Balkh was the burial place ofEzekiel and the home ofJeremiah, bothJewish andMuslim prophets.^[2] Jews also settled inHerat, which was an important location on theSilk Road as well as on other trading routes. In modern times, ruins from Jewish settlements still exist in the city, including aJewish cemetery. The 12th-centuryArab geographerMuhammad al-Idrisi wrote that the city ofKabul had aJewish quarter.^[5] In the 18th century, Jews who had served in the army ofNader Shah settled in Kabul as his treasury guards.^[5] In 2011, theAfghan Geniza, an 11th-century collection of Jewish manuscript fragments that was compiled inHebrew,Aramaic,Judaeo-Arabic, andJudaeo-Persian, was found in a cave network in Afghanistan. Some 29 pages from the collection were purchased by theJerusalem-basedNational Library of Israel in 2013.^[6]

Following theKazakh famine of 1930–1933, a significant number ofBukharan Jews crossed the border into theKingdom of Afghanistan as part of the wider famine-related refugee crisis; leaders of the communities petitioned Jewish communities in Europe and the United States for support.^[7] In total, some 60,000 refugees had fled from theSoviet Union and reached Afghanistan.^[3][8] In 1932,Mohammed Nadir Shah signed a border treaty with the Soviets in order to prevent asylum seekers from crossing into Afghanistan from SovietCentral Asia.^[3][8] Later that year, Afghanistan began deporting Soviet-origin refugees either back to the Soviet Union or to specified territories inChina.Soviet Jews who were already present in Afghanistan with the intent to flee further south were detained in Kabul, and all Soviet Jews who were apprehended at the border were immediately deported. All Soviet citizens, including these Bukharan Jews, were suspected by both the Afghan and British government officials of conducting espionage with the intention to disseminateBolshevik propaganda.^[9]

From September 1933, many of these ex-Soviet Jewish refugees in northern Afghanistan were forcibly relocated to major cities such as Kabul and Herat,^[10][11][12] but continued to live in under restrictions on work and trade.^[10] Whilst it has been claimed that the November 1933 assassination ofMohammad Nadir Shah made the situation worse, this is likely to have had only a limited influence.^[13]In 1935, theJewish Telegraphic Agency reported that "ghetto rules" had been imposed on Afghan Jews, requiring them to wear particular clothes, requiring Jewish women to stay outside markets, requiring all Jews to live within certain distances frommosques and banning Jews from riding horses.^[14] In 1935, a delegate to theWorld Zionist Congress claimed that an estimated 40,000Bukharan Jews had been killed or starved to death.^[8] In mid-1935, riots erupted in Herat, the Afghan city with the largest Jewish population, over a dispute between two boys— one Jewish and oneMuslim. The two boys got into a fight for unknown reasons, during which the Muslim boy fell down a flight of stairs. The Jewish boy, Aba ben Simon, was blamed, and others began spreading rumors that he was trying to convert the Muslim boy toJudaism.^[8] From 1935 to 1941, under Prime MinisterMohammad Hashim Khan (the uncle of the king),Nazi Germany was the most influential country in Afghanistan.^[15] The Nazis regarded most of theAfghans asAryans.^[16] In 1938, it was reported that Jews were allowed to work only as shoe-polishers.^[17]

Some Afghan Jews attempted to emigrate toBritish India, but when they arrived on the border, the colonial authorities categorised them according to their passports; those with Soviet passports were accused of having "Bolshevist ties" and denied entry. Many Afghan Jews were deported back to Soviet-controlled territories under the guise of allegedly violating the "behavioural conduct" codes of British India, although historians have made note of the fact that the colonial government's fear that the emigrants would spreadsocialist ideas among the Indian public and offer encouragement to theindependence movement played a much larger part in its decision to deport them.^[8]

The living conditions of Jews continued to worsen in both Kabul and Herat.^{[citation needed]} Many Afghan Jews illegally emigrated to British India during the 1940s during theSecond World War. Thousands of Afghan Jews also emigrated toMandatory Palestine during the war, but most of them emigrated to theState of Israel after it was founded in 1948. Some Afghan Jews also emigrated to theUnited States, most of whom settled in theNew York City borough ofQueens.^[3]

In 1948, there were over 5,000 Jews in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was the only Muslim country which allowed Jewish emigrants to keep their citizenship. Most Afghan Jews moved to Israel or the United States.^[18] By 1969, approximately 300 Jews remained in Afghanistan, but most of them left Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979, leaving only 10 Jews in Afghanistan in 1996, most of whom lived in Kabul. Currently, more than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent live in Israel. Over 200 Afghan Jewish families live inNew York.^[4][18] Over 100 Jews of Afghan descent live inLondon.^[3]

By the end of 2004, only three known Jews were left in Afghanistan:Zablon Simintov, Isaac Levy (born c. 1920), and, it later emerged, Simintov's cousin Tova Moradi.

Levy relied on charity to survive, while Simintov ran a store selling carpets and jewelry until 2001. They lived on opposite sides of the dilapidated Kabul synagogue. They kept denouncing each other to the authorities, and both of them spent time inTaliban jails. The Taliban also confiscated the synagogue'sTorah scroll. The contentious relationship between Simintov and Levy was dramatized in a play which was inspired by news reports about the lives of the two men, which were released by the international news media following theU.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The play, titledThe Last Two Jews of Kabul, was written by playwrightJosh Greenfeld and was staged in New York in 2002.

In January 2005, Levy died of natural causes, leaving the world believing Simintov was the sole known Jew in Afghanistan.^[19] He cared for the onlysynagogue in Afghanistan's capital,Kabul.^[20] He was still trying to recover the confiscated Torah. Simintov, who does not speakHebrew,^[21] claimed that the man who stole the Torah is now in US custody inGuantanamo Bay. Simintov has a wife and two daughters, all of whom emigrated to Israel in 1998, and he said he was considering joining them. However, when he was asked if he would go to Israel during an interview, Simintov retorted, "Go to Israel? What business do I have there? Why should I leave?"^[21] In April 2021, Simintov announced that he would emigrate to Israel after theHigh Holy Days of 2021, due to the fear that the planned withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan would result in the Taliban's return to power.^[22] Throughout August 2021, Simintov remained in Kabul, despite having had a chance to escape.^[23][22][24]

After receiving death threats from theTaliban and theISIS-KP, Simantov emigrated to a presently undisclosed country before the Jewish holiday ofRosh Hashanah on 6 September 2021. He brought 30 other refugees with him, including 28 women and children.^[25]

Two months later, it turned out that a previously unrevealed distant cousin of Simintov, Tova Moradi, had fled Afghanistan sometime in October, making her the last Jew known to be in Afghanistan for the intervening month.^[26] Contrary to official reports which stated that "no Jewish" person was living in the country, it is believed that Moradi was the lastJew who lived inAfghanistan.^[1][27]

Due todecades of warfare,antisemitism, and extremereligious persecution, there are officially no Jews remaining in Afghanistan today.^[28][29]

TheKabul synagogue that Zablon Simintov was a caretaker of until his last day in Afghanistan is located in District 4 of Kabul, in "kuche-ye Gol Forushiha" (Persian:کوچه گل فروشیها, The Florists' Alleyway).^[30] Simintov's neighbors promised him that they would maintain the synagogue of Kabul in his absence.^[25]

In the city of Herat, the historic centre of Afghan Jews, there are 4 synagogues, 1 public bath, as well as a Jewish cemetery and several abandoned houses. TheYu Aw Synagogue (Persian:کنیسه یوآو), the largest of the Synagogues, still exists inHerat, in western Afghanistan.^[31] It is a disused synagogue, which still has most of its original characteristics. This synagogue is composed of 3 floors, a main congregation room, several side rooms and corridors, as well as 7 domes of different sizes.^[32] The Yu Aw synagogue underwent renovation in recent years and it was also added to Herat's list of protected cultural sites.^[31]

The second synagogue, the 'Gulkiya Synagogue (Persian:کنیسه گلکیا) was converted into a mosque and today, it continues to be used as theBalal Mosque. Despite the takeover of the Synagogue, its structure and design have not changed, and the building has undergone renovation in recent years. The synagogue'smikveh has fallen into disrepair and as a result, it is no longer accessible to the public.^[31] The third synagogue, Shemayel Synagogue (Persian:کنیسه شمائیل) has been converted to an elementary school, and has also been renovated in recent years.^[31] The fourth synagogue, the Mulla Ashur Synagogue (Persian:کنیسه ملا عاشور), located within Herat's historic Bazar, has been left abandoned, and as a result, it is in a state of disrepair.^[31] The Jewish public bath also remains abandoned, and the building is also in need of urgent renovation in order to prevent its complete destruction. The bath was operational in Herat's Bazaar until 2018.^[31]

There is also a small Jewish cemetery in Herat. Some of the tombstones have information about the deceased persons which is written on them inHebrew. In recent years, some of the tombstones and the wall which surrounds the cemetery have been repaired thanks to donations which were sent by the Afghan Jewish Community which lives in theState of Israel.^[31] Before the fall of the government of the Afghan Islamic Republic to the Taliban, Herat's cultural officials stated that at the time of the forced departure of the Herati Jews, on a stone inscription, the community stated that it had transferred the responsibility of caring for the Synagogues, the public bath, and the cemetery to the government which ruled Afghanistan when the inscription was written.^[31] The state of these historic buildings and the Taliban's plans for them have remained unknown since Afghanistan fell to theIslamist group which has terrorized religious minorities in the past.

• Antisemitism in Islam
• History of the Jews under Muslim rule
• Islamic–Jewish relations
• Jewish exodus from the Muslim world#Afghanistan

• Media related toJewish people of Afghanistan at Wikimedia Commons
• Zeva Oelbaum Photographs at theAmerican Sephardi Federation, including photos taken of Jewish communities inHerat andKabul in 1976.
• The "Other" in "Afghan" Identity: Medieval Jewish community of Afghanistan by Guy Matalon, PhD (article first published inMardom Nama-e Bakhter in August 1997)
• Old pictures of the Jews of Afghanistan
• The Jewish History of Afghanistan: A long lost chapter of Jews in the Diaspora by Aaron Feigenbaum atAish HaTorah's website

• Jewish Afghan history
• Sephardi Jews topics
• Jewish ethnic groups

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