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  • 6 months later...

http://groong.usc.edu/world/as/msg00836.html

 

The last two Jews of Kabul. And they hate each other

By Nick Meo in Kabul

 

The Independent/UK

11 September 2004

 

Life is not easy at the best of times for the last two Jews in

Afghanistan. But the situation is made more complicated by the fact

that they hate each other.

 

Worse still, despite their mutual loathing, Zbolon Semantov and

Isaak Levi have to live together in the country's last synagogue,

long after the rest of Afghanistan's Jews moved to Israel.

 

For years the feud was so bad that the temple was divided by a curtain

so the pair didn't have to see each other during worship.

 

"Careful of him, he's a magician," hissed Mr Semantov, who lives in

the upstairs quarters. "He's not a real Jew, he converted to Islam

just to please the Taliban."

 

Mr Levi, whose squalid old man's quarters are downstairs, insists

he is the true guardian of the synagogue. He is weary now though and

just wants to give up and join his family in Beersheva. "Don't listen

to that dirty dog upstairs," he says, showing missing teeth from,

he claims, fist fights between the two of them.

 

The stand-off in the synagogue off Flower Street is a sad end to

a rich culture hundreds of years old. Bukhara in Uzbekistan, on

Afghanistan's northern border, once had a Jewish community of around

100,000, most of whom emigrated to Israel and the United States. Only

a few thousand remain.

 

Herat in the west once had thousands of Jews, but most left for Israel

after 1948. American Jewish researchers say they have recently found

families in Herat who converted to Islam to survive but who have

continued to practise their faith in secret.

 

In the 1940s a community of 40,000 Jews lived in Kabul, where they

prospered as money-changers and as carpet dealers. They built the

capital's synagogue in 1966. However, after the Communist revolution

of the 1970s most left, eventually leaving only Mr Semantov, whose

carpet business was thriving, and Mr Levi, who found himself, as a

shoemaker, too poor to go. Both see themselves as custodians of the

last flickering flame of Judaism in Afghanistan. "It's my country

so why should I go?" asked Mr Semantov. "Somebody has to look after

the synagogue, and if I move to Israel it will be that imposter

downstairs."

 

Mr Levi has had enough. He suffers from diabetes and ekes out a living

selling amulets to superstitious Afghan women seeking to become

pregnant. "I just wish the Israeli government would help me go,"

he said.

 

He claims that he was beaten by the Taliban's feared Vice and Virtue

Police after Mr Semantov ratted on him to save his own skin. "I told

them I was trying to help people - how could that be against Islam?" Mr

Levi said. "But they beat me anyway."

 

Today little prejudice is shown against them and both have Muslim

friends. Most Afghans know nothing of their own country's Jewish

heritage and leave them alone to their worship and their feud.

 

Some progress has been made on taking the poison out of the dispute

of late. Jewish groups from New York have arbitrated and persuaded

them to take the partition down in the synagogue. But they still

won't speak to one another.

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"Careful of him, he's a magician," hissed Mr Semantov, who lives in

the upstairs quarters. "He's not a real Jew, he converted to Islam

just to please the Taliban."

 

At the risk of being even sillier.

How does one tell the difference, even if one would inspect inside their pants?

:D ;) :lol:

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