History of the Jews in Afghanistan

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 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.

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.

By 1948, over 5,000 Jews existed in Afghanistan, and after they were allowed to emigrate in 1951, most of them moved to Israel and the United States. Afghanistan was the only Muslim country that allowed Jewish families to emigrate without revoking their citizenship first. Afghan Jews left the country en masse in the 1960s, their resettlement in New York and Tel Aviv was motivated by a search for a better life but not because of religious persecution. By 1969, some 300 remained, and most of these left after the Soviet invasion of 1979, leaving 10 Afghan Jews in 1996, most of them in Kabul. More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent presently live in Israel. Over 200 families of Afghan Jews live in New York City in USA. Over 100 Jews of Afghan descent live in London.

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