Zablon Simintov
Zebulon Simentov (also Zablon Simintov, born 1960 in Herat ) is a carpet merchant and probably the last Jew in Afghanistan.
After the establishment of Israel in 1948 and the lifting of restrictions on emigration in 1951, most of the time around 5000 Afghan Jews emigrated to the new Jewish state. After the Soviet intervention, almost all of the 300 remaining Jews fled. 1996 is only about ten people, have mostly given in the capital Kabul. During the reign of the Taliban, only two Jews remained in the country: Simentov and about 35 years older than Isaac Levi.
The last two Jews of Afghanistan were connected each other in wonderful hostility. Both lived in the building of the last Kabul synagogue and saw themselves as the rightful administrator of the church and the local guardian, supposedly 400 years old, handwritten Torah scroll. Both accused each other of Torah theft and showed each other with the Taliban, with the result that both Simentov and Levi were temporarily detained and tortured by the Taliban.
The elder Levi was solely responsible for the Built in the 1960s synagogue for many years. 1998 moved Simentov with one and was initially welcomed by Levi. The dispute began when Simentov Levi proposed to follow his family to Israel, because the climate in Kabul was uncomfortable but with its cold winters for an elderly gentleman. He also threw Levi, the Muslim women prophesied the future and love potions sold before, that his trade against the Jewish religion contrary. The reasons with which Simentov and Levi anzeigten each other with the Taliban, ranging from the operation of a brothel to espionage. During her first ( joint ) custody of the Taliban looted the synagogue and stole valuable equipment, including four silver bells and a silver Torah pointer. As Simentov wanted to bring the Torah to Israel in security, Levi accused the Taliban, he wanted to sell the valuable role for their own benefit. The Taliban seized then 1999, the controversial Torah, which has been lost since then.
The approximately seven-year animosity of the last two Afghan Jews ended when Levi died in mid-January 2005. Simentov found him dead on the floor of the synagogue lying and said he was not sad about it, on the contrary, at last, he was the leader.
Simentov now lives in great poverty alone in the dilapidated synagogue in Kabul. His carpet store he had in 2001 after a raid by the Taliban, in which he lost his possessions, give up. His wife and two daughters live in Israel.
The conflictual relationship between Simentov and Levi was - excited by the news reports of U.S. troops accompanying reporters about the two - the template for two plays: Once the piece The last two Jews of Kabul ( "The Last Two Jews of Kabul ") of the playwright Josh Greenfeld; it was performed in New York in 2002, another time the British dramedy My Brother's Keeper by Michael Flexer (2006).