31/10/2021
For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the “last Jew of Afghanistan,” the sole remnant of a centuries-old community. He charged reporters for interviews and held court in Kabul’s only remaining synagogue. He left the country last month for Istanbul after the Taliban seized power.
Now it appears he was not the last one.
Simentov’s distant cousin, Tova Moradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived there until last week, more than a month after Simentov departed in September. Fearing for their safety, Moradi, her children and nearly two dozen grandchildren fled the country in recent weeks in an escape orchestrated by an Israeli aid group, activists and prominent Jewish philanthropists.
“I loved my country, loved it very much, but had to leave because my children were in danger,” Moradi told The Associated Press from her modest quarters in the Albanian town of Golem, whose beachside resorts have been converted to makeshift homes for some 2,000 Afghan refugees.
IsraAid CEO Yotam Polizer said the organization had already successfully extracted the Afghan women’s cycling team and dozens of other Afghans from the country when it got word about Moradi and her family.
He said the two-month-long endeavor to get them out was assisted by Afghan diplomats overseas, Israeli President Isaac Herzog’s office, and Jewish businessmen, including Israeli-Kazakh billionaire Alexander Mashkevich and Israeli-Canadian billionaire Sylvan Adams, who tapped contacts in Israel, Albania, Canada and Tajikistan to help facilitate the family’s escape.
Mashkevich said he “involved all my friends, because it was very difficult.”
JERUSALEM (AP) — For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the “last Jew of Afghanistan,” the sole remnant of a centuries-old community. He charged reporters for interviews and held court in Kabul’s only remaining synagogue.
