Afghanistan's Jewish community dwindles to two --
and they're feuding Faith
By Steven Gutkin
Associated Press
Zebulon Simentov, 42, holds a peeling poster
containing Judaic themes in Kabul, Afghanistan. Kabul's last two Jews,
Simentov and Isaq Levin live at separate ends of the same decaying synagogue
in the capital of Kabul and are feuding, each claiming to be the rightful
owner of the synagogue and its paraphernalia.
Steven Gutkin/AP
KABUL, Afghanistan -- The Jewish
community in Afghanistan was once a proud one, with 40,000 people, flourishing
businesses and a distinctive Torah design.
But the population eroded through
the last century, and recent decades have seen the Soviet invasion, civil
war and the rise of the radical Islamic Taliban movement to power.
Now, as far as anyone knows, the
community has dwindled to just two men -- and they dislike each other.
What's worse, their sole remaining Torah has been confiscated.
Afghanistan's last two Jews -- Ishaq
Levin and Zebulon Simentov -- live at separate ends of the same decaying
synagogue in the Afghan capital and are feuding, each claiming to be the
rightful owner of the synagogue and its paraphernalia.
''Sometimes he tries to talk to me
but I don't like him. I turn my head,'' Simentov said.
The men are reluctant to say much
about their relationship with the Taliban or to comment on a recent Taliban
ruling, so far not implemented, requiring Hindus to wear a yellow cloth
on their shirt pockets to distinguish them from Muslims.
The ruling doesn't apply to other
religions and is intended, the Taliban says, to exempt Hindus from the
stern rules imposed by the religious police. But it has been strongly condemned
abroad as reminiscent of how the Nazis treated Jews.
Simentov said no ruling could sway
his faith.
''Even if they try to kill me,''
he said, ''I will remain a Jew.''
Simentov is 42, Levin a good 30 years
older though unsure of his age.
After Israel came into being in 1948,
most of the 5,000 Jews still in Afghanistan emigrated there, but Levin
stayed. He was the synagogue's shamash, or caretaker, before the Soviets
invaded Afghanistan in 1979, when most of the remaining Jews left.
Levin rides a bicycle around Kabul
and is known to his friendly Muslim neighbors as ''mullah,'' or ''rabbi,''
even though he is not one.
Between 1992 and 1996, civil war
during the time that ousted defense chief Ahmed Shah Massood ruled killed
nearly 50,000 people in the capital.
''I was in the synagogue alone when
Kabul came under rocket fire,'' Levin said. ''But God is great,'' he added,
in Hebrew.
Standing on a tattered carpet in
his darkened room near the synagogue's sanctuary, Levin lit Sabbath candles
one recent Friday night but could remember only about half the blessing.
In the past, he earned a living by
telling Muslim women their fortunes and prescribing medicine and love potions
for them -- a practice that once landed him in a Taliban jail.
Despite the harsh brand of Islam
they impose on Muslims, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers have allowed the country's
minority religions -- Sikhs, Hindus and these remaining Jews -- to practice
their faith largely unhindered.
Yet both Levin and Simentov have
been jailed after being reported by the other for alleged offenses ranging
from religious harassment to running a brothel.
Simentov produced photos of bruises
on his body which he said were inflicted by the Taliban after Levin went
to the authorities, claimed to be a Muslim and insisted Simentov wouldn't
let him practice his religion.
Each denies the other's accusations.
Two years ago the Torah scroll, the
holiest object in the synagogue, was confiscated. It's not clear exactly
why or by whom, and no one at the Taliban's Interior Ministry or police
would comment.
Simentov accused Levin of wanting
to sell the Torah. Levin said Simentov asked the Taliban to take it for
safekeeping.
The Jews of Afghanistan and eastern
Persia -- today's Iran -- have their own Torah design that uses one flat
and two round finials to wrap the holy scrolls. The rest of the world's
Jews use just one pair.
Born in Herat, the other Afghan city
where Judaism once flourished, Simentov spent much of his life outside
of Afghanistan but returned three years ago to set up a carpet business.
He also brought money donated by
Afghan Jews in Israel for a guardhouse and wall around Kabul's Jewish cemetery,
where dry weeds and rocks cover tombstones destroyed by civil war.
Simentov said he faithfully executed
the mission. Both men say they have wives and children living in Israel,
but stay in Afghanistan because they are owed money here.
Despite large-scale emigration since
1948, an AP reporter who visited the Kabul synagogue in 1980, just after
the Soviets invaded, found about 150 Jews attending a lively Sabbath service,
highlighted by the ritual circumcision of a newborn Jewish boy.
Now that boy is gone, and the walls
of the synagogue are peeling. The windows are shattered and old prayer
books are crumbling in the holy ark. The community, too, seems to be coming
to a shabby end.
''I begged him not to be my enemy,''
Levin said. ''If I die tomorrow, who will bury me in the traditions of
my religion?''
This article published in the Athens Banner-Herald
on Saturday, August 25, 2001.
