History of the Jews in Afghanistan

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Afghan Jews

Jewish Cemetery in Herat
Total population
More than 10,000
Regions with significant populations
Israel	10,000
USA	200
UK	100
Afghanistan	0
Languages
Hebrew, Dari
Religion
Judaism

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The history of the Jews in Afghanistan goes back nearly 1,500 years,^[1] but if there is any truth to the legend which states that Afghans or Pashtuns themselves are descended from the Lost Israelite Tribes (see Theories of Pashtun origin), the Jewish presence in Afghanistan dates back at least 2,500 years. In more recent times, the community has been reduced to extinction by emigration.^[1][2][3] Today, the Afghan Jewish communities now exist mostly in Israel and the United States.

The Jews had formed a community of leather and karakul merchants, landowners and money lenders alike.^{[citation needed]} The large Jewish families mostly lived in the border city of Herat, while the families' patriarchs traveled back and forth on trading trips across the mountains of Afghanistan. On the rocks of these mountains, their prayers were carved in the Hebrew language and sometimes even Aramaic, moving between the routes on the ancient Silk Road.^[4] Jews also settled in the capital city of Kabul.

A notable Israeli of Afghan-Jewish descent is the Sephardic Rabbi of Givat Shaul, Jerusalem, rabbi Yinon Yonah.

History[]

Afghan Jews

Early history[]

Records of a Jewish presence in Afghanistan go back to the 7th century.^[1] Afghans or Pashtuns claim descent from the Lost Israelite Tribes. Balkh was a major center of Jewish life in ancient Afghanistan. The city was said to have been the burial place of the Hebrew prophet Ezekiel, and the home of the prophet Jeremiah.^[4] The city of Herat was an important location on the silk route, as well as on other trading routes. In modern times, ruins still exist, and one of them is a Jewish cemetery. Muhammad al-Idrisi (died 1166) wrote that Kabul had a Jewish quarter.^[5] In the 18th century, Jews who had served in the army of Nadir Shah settled in Kabul as his treasury guards.^[5] In 2011, the so-called Afghan Geniza, an 11th-century collection of manuscript fragments which were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian, was found in Taliban caves in Afghanistan. Some 29 pages from the collection were purchased by the National Library of Israel in 2013.^[6]

Soviet refugee crisis[]

By the early 1930s, some 60,000 refugees fled from Soviet territory and settled in Afghanistan.^[1][2] In 1932, Mohammed Nadir Shah signed a border treaty with the Soviet Union in order to prevent asylum seekers from crossing into Afghanistan from the Soviet border.^[1][2] Later that year, Afghanistan began deporting refugees back to the Soviet Union or specified Chinese territories. Soviet Jews who were already in Afghanistan, because they were attempting to flee further south, were detained in Kabul, and all Soviet Jews who were apprehended at the border were immediately deported. Soviet Jews were accused of conducting espionage with the intention to disseminate radical Bolshevist propaganda.^{[citation needed]}

Anti-Jewish campaign[]

Nadir Shah was assassinated in 1933, and he was succeeded by his son, Mohammed Zahir Shah, who continued and expanded his father's campaign against the Jews in Afghanistan.^{[citation needed]} Afghan Jews were declared non-citizens^[7] and non-refugee Afghani Jews, who had lived there for decades if not centuries, began to be targeted.^{[citation needed]} All Jewish citizens of Afghanistan were ordered to relocate to their birthplace, which was most often Herat or Kabul. This was an attempt by the government to further enforce the policy that Jews were not natives of the northern provinces of Afghanistan. By the end of 1933, nearly all Jews in northern cities had been expelled, and returned to central Afghanistan.^{[citation needed]} Many Jews in Afghanistan were expelled from their homes and robbed of their property.^[8][9][10] Jews continued living in major cities such as Kabul and Herat, under restrictions on work and trade.^[8]

In 1935, the Jewish Telegraph 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 from mosques and banning Jews from riding horses.^[11] In 1935, a delegate to the Zionist Congress said that an estimated 40,000 Bukharan Jews had been killed or starved.^[2]

In mid-1935, riots erupted in Herat, the Afghan city with the largest Jewish population, over a dispute between two boys, one Jewish and one Muslim. The two boys got into a fight for unknown reasons, during which the Muslim boy fell down some stairs. The Jewish boy, Aba Ben Simon, was blamed, and others began spreading rumors that he was trying to forcibly convert the Muslim boy to Judaism.^[2] The incident led Herat's Shiite Muslims to take up arms against Jews and pillage their shops and homes.^{[citation needed]} Jewish women were subjected to kidnapping and rape, regardless of their marital status, and sometimes, they were forcibly converted to Islam and married off to their attackers. Some Jews fled Herat, and they were never allowed to return.^{[citation needed]}

From 1935 to 1941, under Prime Minister Mohammad Hashim Khan (the uncle of the king) Nazi Germany was the most influential country in Afghanistan.^[12] The Nazis regarded the Afghans as Aryans.^[13] In 1938, it was reported that Jews were only allowed to work as shoe-polishers.^[7][14]

Escape from Afghanistan[]

Some Jews tried to flee to British-controlled India, but the British colonial government categorized them according to their passports: Iranian, Russian and Afghani. Those with Russian passports were once again accused of “Bolshevist ties” and denied entry. The British Raj tried to deport many Afghani and Russian Jews back to the Soviet Union under the guise that they had allegedly violated the "behavioral conduct" codes of British India (i.e., the Peshawar Conspiracy Cases), in fact, the colonial government feared that they would disseminate socialism among its native Indian colonial subjects and encourage them to revolt against oppressive colonial rule, strengthening the then-growing Indian independence movement.^[2]

The condition of Jews in Kabul and Herat continued to worsen.^{[citation needed]} Many Jews illegally fled to India during the 1940s. Thousands of Jews fled to Palestine, (most of them fled to Palestine after Israel was established in 1948). Some Jews also made it to the United States, mainly settling in New York City's borough of Queens.^[1]

Emigration[]

In 1948, there were over 5,000 Jews in Afghanistan. They were allowed to freely emigrate in 1951, and allowed to keep Afghan citizenship, the only Muslim country to do so. Most moved to Israel or the United States.^[15] Afghan Jews left the country en masse in the 1960s. Their resettlement in New York and Tel Aviv was motivated by a search for a better life. By 1969, some 300 remained, and most left after the Soviet invasion in 1979, leaving 10 Afghan Jews in 1996, most of them in Kabul.^[2] More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent presently live in Israel. Over 200 families of Afghan Jews live in New York.^[3][15] Over 100 Jews of Afghan descent live in London.^[1]

End of Afghanistan's Jewish community[]

By the end of 2004, only two Jews were left in Afghanistan, Zablon Simintov and Isaac Levy (born c. 1920). 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 in Taliban jails. The Taliban also confiscated the synagogue's Torah scroll. The contentious relationship between Simintov and Levy was dramatized in a play which was inspired by news reports of the two men, which were released by the international news media following the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan and the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The play, titled The Last Two Jews of Kabul, was written by playwright Josh Greenfeld and was staged in New York in 2002.

In January 2005, Levy died of natural causes, leaving Simintov as the sole known Jew in Afghanistan.^[16] He cared for the only synagogue in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.^[17] He was still trying to recover the confiscated Torah. Simintov, who does not speak Hebrew,^[18] claimed that the man who stole the Torah is now in US custody in Guantanamo 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?"^[18] In April 2021, Simintov announced that he would emigrate to Israel after the High 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.^[19] Throughout August 2021, Simintov remained in Kabul despite having had a chance to escape.^[20][19][21]

Despite initially stating that he will put up with the Taliban rule, it has been reported that Simantov has emigrated to a presently undisclosed country before the Jewish holiday of Rosh Hashanah on 6 September 2021 after he received death threats from the Taliban or ISIS-K, taking 30 other refugees with him, including 28 women and children.^[22] It has been reported by a New York based Orthodox Jewish publication, Ami Magazine, that Zablon has is en route to the United States. Thus, unfortunately, due to decades of warfare and unbearable antisemitism and religious prosecution, there are officially no Jewish people remaining in Afghanistan as of September 6th, 2021.^[23][24]

Remaining Synagogues and buildings[]

The synagogue that Zablon Simanton 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).^[25] Simantov's neighbors promised him that they will maintain the synagogue of Kabul in his absence.^[22]

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. The Yu Aw Synagogue (Persian: کنیسه یوآو‎), the largest of the Synagogues, still exists in Herat, in western Afghanistan.^[26] It is a disused synagogue, which still has mos t 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.^[27] Yu Aw synagogue underwent renovation in recent years and was added to Herat's list of protected cultural sites.^[26] The second synagoge, Gulkiya Synagogue (Persian: کنیسه گلکیا‎) has been converted is continued to be used as Balal Mosque. Despite the takeover of the Synagogue, the structure and design has not changed, and the building has underwent renovation in recent years. The synagogue's Mikveh has fallen to dispair and is no longer accessible to public.^[26] The third synagogue,Shemayel Synagogue (Persian: کنیسه شمائیل‎) has been converted to an elementary school, and has also been renovated in recent years.^[26] The fourth synagogue, the Mulla Ashur Synagogue (Persian: کنیسه ملا عاشور‎), located within Herat's historic Bazar, has sadly been left abandoned, and is in a state of despair.^[26] The Jewish public bath also remains abandoned, and the building is in need of urgent renovation in order to be saved from complete destruction. The bath was operational in Herat's Bazar until 2018.^[26] There is also a small Jewish cemetery in Herat. Some of the tombstones have information about the deceased persons written on them in Hebrew. In recent years, some of the tombstones and the wall surrounding the cemetery have been repaired thanks to donations sent from the Afghan Jewish Community in State of Israel.^[26] Herat's cultural officials before the fall of the Afghan Islamic Republic government to the Taliban, stated that at the time of the forced departure of Herati Jews, in a stone inscription, the community stated that it has transferred the responsibility for the Synagogues, the public bath, and the cemetery to the Afghan government at the time.^[26] The state of these historic buildings and the Taliban intentions remain unknown after the fall of Afghanistan to the violent Islamist group responsible for terrorist attacks against religious minorities.

See also[]

• History of the Jews under Muslim rule
• Antisemitism in Islam
• Jewish exodus from Arab and Muslim countries#Afghanistan

References[]

External links[]

• Zeva Oelbaum Photographs at the American Sephardi Federation, including photos taken of Jewish communities in Herat and Kabul in 1976.
• The "Other" in "Afghan" Identity: Medieval Jewish community of Afghanistan by Guy Matalon, PhD (article first published in 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 at Aish HaTorah's website