Afghanistan – In Kabul’s Only Synagogue, Merchants Open Up Shop

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    An Afghan woman clad in burqa and her daughter walks past a restaurant built inside part of the only synagogue building in Kabul, June 1, 2011. A lattice of iron Star of David marks Afghanistan's only working synagogue, a white-washed, two-storey building tucked into a side street in the centre of Kabul. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani Kabul, Afghanistan – A lattice of corrugated iron Star of Davids marks Afghanistan’s only working synagogue, a white-washed, two-storey building tucked into a sidestreet in the centre of Kabul.

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    Kebabs, carpets and flowers are served and sold on the ground floor of the synagogue, which has been transformed into businesses over the last 18 months by the country’s sole remaining Jew, who lives upstairs in a small pink room.

    Cafe manager Sayed Ahmad is unfazed by his small cafe’s history, where Kabul’s hundreds-strong Jewish community once gathered for prayers. Most fled to Israel and the United States amid the Soviet invasion of 1979.

    “Some of my customers know this is the synagogue and know about the Jew upstairs, but they don’t care and neither do I,” Ahmad told Reuters in his cafe, where bearded men on purple cushions puff on water pipes and eat traditional Afghan food.

    The firebrand anti-Semitism found in some other Muslim countries, often fuelled by anti-Israeli sentiment, seems noticeably absent among ordinary Afghans.

    “I pray my way and he prays his way. I see him as a friend, someone to spend time with,” Ahmad said of his landlord, sitting beside large black and silver wall-hangings depicting Mecca.
    A view of the only synagogue building in Kabul,June 1, 2011. A lattice of iron Star of David marks Afghanistan's only working synagogue, a white-washed, two-storey building tucked into a side street in the centre of Kabul. REUTERS/Omar Sobhani
    Zebulon Simentov, who chose to stay behind when his wife and children emigrated to Israel, has been known to conduct services in the upstairs of the synagogue for visiting Jews even though he is not a rabbi.

    He achieved fame beyond Afghanistan’s borders because of a raging feud with the country’s second-last Jew that only ended when his rival died in 2005, and which inspired a U.S. play.

    Now living alone in the synagogue, the 52 year-old says the building has become too hard to maintain.

    “This place is big and I need money,” he told Reuters as he adjusted his pyjama-like shalwar kameez, traditional clothing for men in the region.

    Simentov traces his ancestors to the western Afghan city of Herat, the cradle of Afghanistan’s Jewish civilisation, which he still visits sometimes. But after 2,000 years, the community there has died out.

    Today, only raised Jewish graves with Hebrew lettering and ornate stone synagogues remain, one of which was renovated two years ago and turned into a school for Afghan children, a move celebrated by Herat’s Jews who had left for the West.

    In Kabul, Simentov spends most of his time in his small room, where Hebrew calendars look down on a small red sofa bed and a mahogany table laden with silver bowls of almonds and Sabbath candles.

    WILL RENT OUT MORE SOON

    More at Reuters.com


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    4 Comments
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    cholent
    cholent
    12 years ago

    It is very sad that there are former shul buildings in the Bronx, Lower east side and Brownsville that were once home to vibrant kehilos and are now empty or being used for other purposes. This is true all across the USA in large and small cities alike. But in the five boros?! Under our noses? Geferlach.
    I feel terrible at the bizayon that is going on in kabul but this is one of the heartbreakes of galus.
    Zul shoin zein de geulah!

    12 years ago

    Something does not make sense here. If Simentov’ss wife and child left for EY, why did he remain behind, and why does he still remain behind? There are no Jews left, outside of the Jews in the U.S. Armed Forces, who are spread out all over the country. In any event, the military have their own Chaplains to conduct services throughout the year. There are virtually no Jewish tourists who come to Afghanistan anymore, because of the ongoing war. It must be very strange to be the only native Jew left in a country, when it once numbered in the thousands.

    cresthill
    cresthill
    12 years ago

    (reply to #1 ) makes we wonder why our galus communities still spend millions of dollars on elaborate shuls…just look at Europe, and so many cities in the US. Within 100 years or less the communities are gone.