Zebulon Simentov had repeatedly received offers to leave Afghanistan.

And again and again his answer was: No.

Simentov has seen more than 40 years of war, survived attacks and military interventions, and seen regimes come and go.

Nothing could move him into exile.

But now Simentov, the last Jew in Afghanistan, has left his homeland behind for good.

Alexander Davydov

Sports editor.

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With him, the broken country also loses a piece of its own history. "Our ancestors here come from the time of exile in Babylon," Simentov told the FAZ in 2019. These roots are not given up lightly. However, this historical origin can hardly be proven. Most of the written testimonies from the pre-Islamic period have been lost. But Simentov believes in it - just as the Pashtuns are convinced that they descend from one of the "lost tribes" of Israel.

In any case, in the 12th century in what is now Afghanistan, around 80,000 Jews lived peacefully with Sunni Muslims.

However, since the 1930s the anti-Semitic policies of the last two kings of Afghanistan forced more and more Jews into exile.

With the invasion of the Soviet Union as well as the civil war and the seizure of power by the Taliban, the community shrank.

Simentov's friends and relatives emigrated to America, his wife and two daughters to Israel.

But he stayed and held the position as the last guardian and protector of his culture.

A new danger

Until not so long ago, visitors were able to see the last synagogue in Afghanistan in an unadorned building on a quiet side street in Kabul. Inside, the sixty-two-year-old guarded the remaining relics of his people, kept in a dusty prayer room behind barred windows. “A test of God”, that's how Simentov described his lonely post.

Even when the Taliban took Afghanistan by storm a few weeks ago after the withdrawal of international troops, Simentov wanted to stay. The new rulers assured the media that minorities would not be persecuted. But the danger remained omnipresent. "His problem is not the Taliban, but the 'Islamic State' and Al-Qaeda," Moti Kahana told the Israeli television station Kan 11. The American-Israeli owner of a private security company ultimately helped Simentov to flee the country.

According to media reports, the rescue operation was financed by Moshe Margaretten, a Jewish entrepreneur who had already campaigned in the past to bring Jews from crisis regions to safety. It is still unclear in which country Simentov is now. However, Kahana has already betrayed his goal: After 100 generations of Jewish life in the Hindu Kush, Simentov's own life should now continue in America.