Zebulun Simentov, the previous Afghan Jew to survive in the former Soviet Red Army, the deadly civil war, and the brutal Taliban regime in Afghanistan, is now ready to say goodbye to his homeland if the Taliban return.
"I am the last and only Jew in Afghanistan ... The situation can be terrible for me," he said, who lives in the only remaining Jewish synagogue in the Afghan capital, Kabul. "I have decided that if the Taliban return, I will go to Israel."
Born in the western Afghan city of Herat in the 1950s, Simentov moved to Kabul during the invasion of the former Soviet army in the early 1980s; Because it was even more stable there.
Jews have lived in Afghanistan for more than 2,500 years and number in the tens of thousands, most of whom live in Herat. Four synagogues still stand in Herat, testifying to the community's ancient presence in Afghanistan.
All Jews left Afghanistan in the 19th century, and most settled in Israel. Still, Simentov remained in his homeland and became the last evidence of the existence of this religious minority in Afghanistan. In recent decades, all of his relatives, including his wife and two daughters, have left Afghanistan.
Wearing local Afghan clothes (shirts and tunics) and wearing the Kipa Jewish hat, he recalls the years before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan as the best days of his homeland: "At that time, followers of all religions and denominations in Afghanistan "They were completely free."
Although he has experienced many hardships and discrimination, he still calls himself "a proud Afghan." His bitterest memoir during the Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001 is that extremist Islamists pressured him to force him to convert: "The unfortunate Taliban regime imprisoned me several times."