Jerusalem: For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as “Afghan’s last Jewish Jew”, the only remnant of a centuries community.
He collected journalists for an interview and held a court in the remaining synagogues in Kabul.
He left the country last month for Istanbul after the Taliban seized power.
Now it looks like he’s not the last.
A distant cousin of Simentov, Tova Moradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived there until last week, more than a month after Simentov left in September.
Worried about their safety, Moradi, his children and nearly two dozen grandchildren escaped from the country in recent weeks in the escape governed by Israeli assistance groups, leading Jewish activists and generators.
“I really love my country, really like it, but must go because my children are in danger,” Moradi told the Associated Press from a simple place in the city of Golem Albania, a beachfront resort had been converted to emergency homes for several people.
2,000 Afghan refugees.
Moradi, 83, is one of the 10 children born from the Jewish family in Kabul.
At the age of 16, he escaped from home and married a Muslim man.
He never entered Islam, retaining several Jewish traditions, and it was no secret in his environment that he was Jewish.
“He never denied Judaismenya, he had just married to save his life because you could not be safe as a young girl in Afghanistan,” Putri Moradi, Khorshid, told AP from his house in Canada, where he and three of him had moved After the Taliban first seized power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
Despite the friction of his decision to get married outside of faith, Moradi said he remained in touch with some of his family for years.
His parents and his brothers escaped from Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1980s.
His parents were buried at Gerusyem’s Harshoping Cemetery, and many of his living brothers and offspring live in Israel.
But until this week, he did not speak with some of his brothers in more than half a century.
“Yesterday, I saw my sister, nephew, and my niece after about 60 years through video calls.
We talked for hours,” Moradi said.
“I’m really happy, I see their children and they meet me.” “They said it seemed like he returned from the grave,” Khorshid said.
Women are now considered Afghanistan’s last Jews escape from the country
