Afghan Jews

Jews are said to have resided in Afghanistan for nearly 1,500 years, but the community has been reduced greatly because of emigration. Afghan Jewish communities now exist mostly in Israel, and the United States. The Afghan Royal Family, who trace their origins to the Tribe of Benjamin, protected the Tribe of Judah for hundreds of years.

The Jews had formed a community of leather and karakul merchants, poor people and money lenders alike. The large Jewish families mostly lived in the border city of Herat, while the families' patriarchs traveled back and forth on trading trips across the majestic mountains of Afghanistan on whose rocks their prayers were carved in Hebrew and sometimes even Aramaic, moving between the routes on the ancient silk road.

As of 2007, only one known Jew, Zablon Simintov, remained residing in Afghanistan; he cared for a synagogue in Afghanistan's capital, Kabul.

Records of a Jewish population in Afghanistan go back to the 7th century.

Muhammad al-Idrisi (died 1166) wrote that Kabul had a Jewish quarter.

In the 18th century, Jews serving in the army of Nadir Shah settled in Kabul as his treasury guards.

In 2011, so-called Afghan Geniza, an 11th-century collection of manuscript fragments in Hebrew, Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Persian was found in Taliban caves in Afghanistan. Some 29 pages from the collection were bought by the National Library of Israel in 2013.

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Wikipedia