History of the Jews in Afghanistan

Jews have lived in Afghanistan for at least 2,000 years, but the community has been reduced greatly because of persecution and emigration. Afghan Jewish communities now exist mostly in Israel and the United States. Today, it is believed there is only one Jew in the entire country. He cares for a said to be in disrepair Synagogue in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

History

It may be possible that Jews have a history of 2,500 years in Afghanistan, tracing back to the Babylonian Exile and Persian conquest.

As of January 2005, it is believed only a single Jew lived in Afghanistan, Zebulon Simentov (born 1960). With a total Afghan population of 30 million, this amounts to a fraction of 33 ppb, the lowest worldwide.

Records of a Jewish population in Afghanistan go back to the 7th century, with the Taaqati-Nasiri mentioning a people called Bani Israel settling in Ghor. The Pashtun have a legend of being descended from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. The claim that the name Kabul is derived from "Cain and Abel", and the name Afghanistan from Afghana, a grandson of King Saul.

In 1080, Moses ibn Ezra mentions 40,000 Jews paying tribute to Ghazni, and Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century counts 80,000 Jews.

In the course of Genghis Khan's 1222 invasion, the Jewish communities were reduced to isolated pockets. Only in 1839, the population increased again, swelled by refugees from Persia, reaching some 40,000.

From 1870, the Afghan authorities persecuted the Jews, leading to mass emigration. By 1948, about 5,000 Jews were left, and after they were allowed to emigrate in 1951, most of them moved to Israel. By 1969, some 300 remained, and most of these left after the Soviet invasion of 1979, leaving 10 Afghan Jews in 1996, most of them in Kabul. More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent presently live in Israel.

By the end of 2004, only two Jews were left in Afghanistan, Zebulon Simentov and Isaac Levy (born ca. 1920). Levy relied on charity, while Simentov ran a store selling carpets and jewelry until 2001. They lived at separate ends of the delapidated Kabul synagogue, Both claimed to be in charge of the synagogue, and the rightful owner of its Torah, accusing the other of theft and imposture. They kept denouncing each other to the authorities, and both spent time in Taliban jails, and the Taliban also confiscated the Torah.

In January 2005, Levy died. Simentov, now the last remaining Jew in Afghanistan, is trying to recover the confiscated Torah. He claims that the man who stole his Torah is now in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay. Simentov has a wife and two daughters who live in Israel, and he said he was considering to join them.

Lost Tribes

It is widely believed by many Muslim scholars and some Jewish scholars that the majority ethnic group of Afghanistan, the Pashtuns, are descended from the exiled Lost Tribes of Israel. They cite oral history and the names of various clans, which resemble the names of the Tribes that were exiled by the Assyrian Empire 2,700 years ago, as evidence for this claim. This evidence, however, was not substantiated by a recent genetic test that was focused on a small non-descript group of Pashtuns which found no substantial connection between Jewish populations and the Pashtuns. Nor is the Eastern Iranian language of the Pashtuns taken into account when examining the claims of Hebrew ancestry. It could be concluded that these claims appear to have emerged amongst the Pashtuns following the Islamic conquest of Afghanistan, it is conceivable that many tribes have created elaborate ancestral lineages to link themselves to prominent peoples mentioned in the Qur'an such as Jews, Greeks (see Alexander in the Qur'an}, and Arabs all of whom have come to the region, but appear to have contributed to various minority genetic strains in the population rather than drastically altering the demographics of Afghanistan.

Contemporary Afghan Jews

More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent now live in Israel. The second largest population of Afghan Jews is New York City, with 200 families. They mostly live in Flushing, Forest Hills, Jamaica, in the borough of 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.

Sources

• 'Only one Jew' now in Afghanistan
• The Virtual Jewish History Tour - Afghanistan