You might think that the chart on Wikipedia must have made a mistake, but it’s actually true! A man named Zebulon Simantov is the last Jew in Afghanistan. There used to be as many as 40,000 Jews in Afghanistan, but most of them moved during the 20th century. Many of them left after the creation of Israel in 1948. The last Jewish families left Afghanistan for Israel during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the years afterward. There are now about 10,000 Afghan Jews in Israel, and another 200 Afghan Jewish families in the New York City borough of Queens. Until 2005, there were just 2 Jewish men living in Afghanistan, maintaining the dilapidated synagogue in Kabul.
Simantov and Yitzhak Levin were the last two Jews in Afghanistan, they lived together for years and they hated each other. Simantov wanted to send the synagogue’s Torah to a friend in Israel, but Levin accused Simantov of stealing it. The two ended up reporting each other to the Taliban authorities in 2001. The end result was that they both were thrown in jail for 6 months, the Taliban confiscated the Torah (which is now estimated to be worth $500,000), and the last two Jews in Afghanistan never talked to each other again. Levin died from diabetes in 2005. Simantov still lives in the synagogue with no Torah, and no other Jews to associate with. He’s broken off contact with friends in Israel and New York, and he still has a wife and kids in Israel, but he refuses to move. Part of the reason is because he can't speak Hebrew.
To read what Levin and Simantov's friends and family think of this situation, check out this article from 2001. The most recent interviews we could find with Simantov were from the San Francisco Chronicle in 2007 and MSNBC in 2008. To learn more about Afghan Jews click here.
