Below are the names/places common among the Pathans and the Bani-Israel.
1. Pathan Pashtoons also known as Pathans.Very few people knows that Pithon is the name of the great-grandson of King Saul,mentioned among a list of hundreds of names chronicling the descendants of the Twelve Tribes (Ref:Chronicles I , 8:35)
8:34 The son of Jonathan:Meribbaal.8Meribbaal was the father of Micah.
8:35 The sons of Micah:Pithon, Melech, Tarea, and Ahaz.
2. AFGHANISTAN Afghanistan is derived from "Afghana," the grandson of King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. This Historical fact is also ignored by the “innocent” so called Western “Historians”
3. KOHAT City in the NWFP and also Meaning: assembly in Hebrew is the second son of Levi, and father of Amram (Gen. 46:11) He came down to Egypt with Jacob, and lived to the age of one hundred and thirty-three years (Ex. 6:18).Note: The so called great Western Historians also skipped this important fact in their writings just to conceal the truth.
4. Zabul Zabul was the name of the Son or grandson of Israel and also it’s the name province in Afghanistan.The fact is during the time Mahmud Ghaznavi,the whole of Afghanistan was called as ZABUL as famous poet FIRDAUSI called Mahmud as SHAH-E-ZABUL i.e King of Zabul.(Also this is ignored by the Wicked Historians of the West)
5. Khyber A fort of Jews during the time of Dear Prophet Muhammad(sallalaho alay hay wa sallam)...and also a place on Pakistan and Afghanistan border which also has the same meaning as that of Hebrew i.e Fort.
6. Peshawer This city in NWFP province of Pakistan has its name and location present in the Torah, a place called HABER or HAWER is mentioned as the place of exile of the lost tribes.Now Peshawer is comprised of two parts,the word Pesh means the Pass( which can be the famous Khyber Pass) and the Hawer means city and thus PESHAWAR means the city after the pass . Ref: (Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5). Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
7. GOZAN (The Amu Darya):Also Gozan is mentioned in as the place of exile of the lost tribe. In Afghanistan the river Amu was also called River Gozan according to Afghani tradition. Therefore Historian Saadia Gaon called the Amu darya al the place of exile of the lost tribe. Ref: (Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5). Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
8. Childern of Joseph Yusufzai a famous pashtoon tribe claim to be the decendant of Joseoh(Yusuf) i.e Prophet of Bani Israel.
9. Afridis This famous tribe of Pashtoons is named after the son of Israel called Ephraim or Afraim.
10. Karak This is a city in Jordon(formally part of ancient Jewish state and also its a city in NWFP province of Pakistan.
11. Lugar A province in Afghanistan and also a name of present day Israeli family name, not to forget the famous wrestler LEX LUGAR.
12. Kabul Kabul is capital of Afghanistan and its a Hebrew word .Cab means unpleasant(or dirty) and bul means city meaning unpleasant city.
13. KHAN Most Pathans use KHAN in their names which resembles COHEN used in Jewish names.Also in Israel there is a city called YOUNUS KHAN with the word KHAN in it.
14. TAKHT-E-SULEAMAN:This is the name of a place in the Pashtun area of Pakistan .It means the Throne of the Israeli King and also the Prophet Hazart Suleman (Alayhay Salam). This place is situated in the mountain ranges also named after King Solomon (Hazrat Suleman) as Koh-e-Suleman.
15. HARAT Also a place called HARA is mentioned in as the place of exile of the lost tribes and HARAT is a famous city in Afghanistan. Ref: (Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5). Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
16. KASH/KISH . Kish/Kash is is the name of numerous personalities mentioned in the Chronicles,all from the Bani-Israel,.like 1) A Levite of the family of Merari (1 Chr. 23:21; 24:29) ,(2.) A Benjamite of Jerusalem (1 Chr. 8:30; 9:36), (3.) A Levite in the time of Hezekiah (2 Chr. 29:12). In Afghanistan many places are named after Kash/Kish,like the desert of Dasht-I-Kash, lies in the north of the Helmund., the city of KASH which is mentioned in the map of Afghanistan 1912 in the Library of Congress USA, the main mountain ranges of Afghanistan also called the HINDU-KUSH and KASH ROD in Nimroz province .
17. MADIAN In Bible history, Madian was where Israeli Prophet Hazrat Musa(alayhay salam) spent the 40 years between the time that he left Egypt after killing an Egyptian who had been beating a Hebrew (Ref:Exodus 2:11-15). In the Pathan area of SWAT valley in Pakistan there is also a city with the same name as MADIAN.
18. DASHT-YAHOODI (The Jewish Plain) There is a famous place in the district MARDAN in Pakistan which is called Dasht-e-Yahoodi since its existence. (Reference : (H.W. Bellew, An Enquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, 34),
19. KILLA YAHOODI( THE FORT OF JEWS) TA place at the eastern boundry of the subcontinent (the Afghanistan border)is called KILLA YAHOODI (The fort of Jews) (Reference : (H.W. Bellew, An Enquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, 34),
PLACES OF EXILE
In the he biblical Book Isaiah it is said :
Isaiah 11:11-12 :and he will raise a Banner to the Gentiles and will gather the banished of Israel ,and the dispersed of Judah will he bring together from the four corners of the earth".
The places of exile of the lost tribes also mentioned in the books also point out the present day Afghanistan
The Locations of the Exile. Other locations mentioned as placed of exile were the river Gozan, Habor, . Halah or Lahlah, and Hara. (Ref:Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5).
Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
Where are these places of Exile?
According to Saadia Gaon, “ River Gozan ” is the river north of the city of Balach in the north of Afghanistan. The river is known today as the “ Amu Darya ”, and is the border between Afghanistan and Russia. Afghanistan tradition states that the whole river was once known as the Gozen River.
“Habor” is located in the pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan , and is called Pesh-Habor in Afghani (Pesh means Pass) after the city of the pass. The city is known today as Peshawar.
“Hara” is the city of Harat near the Persian border. It is the third largest city in Afghanistan . The prophecy of Isaiah states that the exile will bring the tribes to the land of Sinim”:
“Behold , these shall come from far, and , lo, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim “( Isaiah 49:12) .
This implies that the exile may have started
Afghan Jewry may date back 2,700 years to the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile, but today only two known Jews remain in Afghanistan.
Several Jewish Afghan histories are circulating. Early biblical commentators regarded Khorasan as a location of the Ten Lost Tribes. Today, several Afghan tribes including the Durrani, Yussafzai, Afridi and Pashtun believe they are decedents of King Saul. They call themselves Bani-Israel, similar to the Hebrew, B'nai Israel, meaning the children of Israel. Even some Muslim scholars and writers accept this. The exiled Afghan Royal family also traces its roots to ancient Israel, the tribe of Benjamin specifically. As evidence, they cite Makhzan-i-Afghani , a chronicle published in 1635, in the time of King Jahangir by Khawaja Nimatullah of Herat.
The Pashtun, the main Afghan ethnic group and Taliban supporters, also believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel , and later converted to Islam. Dozens of Pashtun names and customs sound Jewish, from the Pashtun tribe names of Asheri and Naftali to the Pashtun custom of a wedding chupah and the circumcising of the sons on the eighth day after birth. The Pashtuns claim that the city of Kabul stands for "Cain and Abel" and Afghanistan is derived from "Afghana," the grandson of King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin.
Another book, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the 7th century, a people called Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat. According to Taaqati-Nasiri as well as Pashtun legend, the Bani Israel soon accepted Islam, after their leader, Qais, met with the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
Other reports tell of Persian Jews rejecting Islam and fleeing the Muslim conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries and settling in Afghanistan. In 1080, Moses ibn Ezra mentioned more than 40,000 Jews paying tribute in Ghazni, a great city on the River Gozan. Benjamin of Tudela, writing approximately 100 years later, echoed this claim, adding that there were 80,000 Jews living there.
Stone tablets with Hebrew inscriptions dating from 1115 to 1215 confirm the existence of a Jewish community in Firoz Koh, located between Herat and Kabul. Genghis Kahn's 1222 Mongol invasion, however, razed Afghanistan, devastating the Jewish communities. Little is known about the small and isolated Jewish community of Afghanistan that remained until the 19th century.
In 1839, thousands of Jews again fled Persia, where the Muslim authorities began forcibly converting them, bringing Afghanistan's Jewish population up to 40,000. They were mostly traders and dyers dealing in skins, carpets and antiquities.
The decline came in 1870 after Afghan Muslim authorities enacted anti-Jewish measures, triggering a mass exodus to Central Asia, Persia and Palestine. The 1933 assassination of King Nadit Shah triggered another anti-Jewish campaign. Jews were banished from most Afghan cities, limiting them to Kabul, Balkh or Herat. In addition, Jews were forbidden to leave town without a permit and forced to pay special taxes.
By the time Israel was created in 1948, approximately 5,000 Jews remained in Afghanistan, but they could not legally immigrate. Once the restriction was lifted in 1951, most Afghan Jews made their way to Israel. By 1969, only 300 Jews lived in Afghanistan, most of whom left in 1979 after the Soviet invasion. In 1996, 10 Jews remained in Afghanistan, nearly all in Kabul.
In 2005, there were two Jews in Afghanistan. Zebulon Simentov and Isaac Levy lived at separate ends of the same decaying synagogue in Kabul. The synagogue was built 40 years earlier and probably avoided being destroyed by the Taliban because it was unassuming, deserted, and in disrepair. Simentov and Levy said they were protecting the synagogue, and each claimed to be the rightful owner of the Torah and accused the other of stealing it. This feud was so heated that both men spent time in Taliban jails for charges they brought against each other, and were beaten with electric cables and rifle butts. Meanwhile, the Taliban confiscated the Torah. Levy relied on charity to get by, while Simentov, 41, owned a store that sold carpets, jewelry and handicrafts. Both men said they got along with their Muslim neighbors.
Levy said he wanted to join his family in Israel, but couldn't afford to leave. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Jewish groups offered to help Levy emigrate, but he refused. In January 2005, Levy died.
Now Simentov is the last Jew in Afghanistan. In 2001, he said the Taliban stoll all his supplies and he had to close his store. He says he now has nothing and lives “like a dog.” He has devoted himself to trying to recover the Torah stolen by the Taliban, and enlisted the help of the U.S. Embassy and Afghan Interior Ministry. He said he was told the man who stole the Torah is now in U.S. custody in Cuba. Simentov's wife and two daughters live in Israel and, after Levy's death, said he was considering joining his family.
More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent now live in Israel. The second largest population of Afghan Jews is New York, with 200 families. They mostly live in Flushing, Jamaica and Queens. Rabbi Jacob Nasirov leads the Orthodox congregation of Anshei Shalom, the lone Afghan synagogue in the United States. Members have roots not only from Afghanistan, but also Yemen, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Morocco and Lebanon.
Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Encyclopedia Judaica, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, World Jewish Congress, Moshiach.com, Jewish Bulletin News
8:34 The son of Jonathan:Meribbaal.8Meribbaal was the father of Micah.
8:35 The sons of Micah:Pithon, Melech, Tarea, and Ahaz.
2. AFGHANISTAN Afghanistan is derived from "Afghana," the grandson of King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin. This Historical fact is also ignored by the “innocent” so called Western “Historians”
3. KOHAT City in the NWFP and also Meaning: assembly in Hebrew is the second son of Levi, and father of Amram (Gen. 46:11) He came down to Egypt with Jacob, and lived to the age of one hundred and thirty-three years (Ex. 6:18).Note: The so called great Western Historians also skipped this important fact in their writings just to conceal the truth.
4. Zabul Zabul was the name of the Son or grandson of Israel and also it’s the name province in Afghanistan.The fact is during the time Mahmud Ghaznavi,the whole of Afghanistan was called as ZABUL as famous poet FIRDAUSI called Mahmud as SHAH-E-ZABUL i.e King of Zabul.(Also this is ignored by the Wicked Historians of the West)
5. Khyber A fort of Jews during the time of Dear Prophet Muhammad(sallalaho alay hay wa sallam)...and also a place on Pakistan and Afghanistan border which also has the same meaning as that of Hebrew i.e Fort.
6. Peshawer This city in NWFP province of Pakistan has its name and location present in the Torah, a place called HABER or HAWER is mentioned as the place of exile of the lost tribes.Now Peshawer is comprised of two parts,the word Pesh means the Pass( which can be the famous Khyber Pass) and the Hawer means city and thus PESHAWAR means the city after the pass . Ref: (Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5). Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
7. GOZAN (The Amu Darya):Also Gozan is mentioned in as the place of exile of the lost tribe. In Afghanistan the river Amu was also called River Gozan according to Afghani tradition. Therefore Historian Saadia Gaon called the Amu darya al the place of exile of the lost tribe. Ref: (Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5). Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
8. Childern of Joseph Yusufzai a famous pashtoon tribe claim to be the decendant of Joseoh(Yusuf) i.e Prophet of Bani Israel.
9. Afridis This famous tribe of Pashtoons is named after the son of Israel called Ephraim or Afraim.
10. Karak This is a city in Jordon(formally part of ancient Jewish state and also its a city in NWFP province of Pakistan.
11. Lugar A province in Afghanistan and also a name of present day Israeli family name, not to forget the famous wrestler LEX LUGAR.
12. Kabul Kabul is capital of Afghanistan and its a Hebrew word .Cab means unpleasant(or dirty) and bul means city meaning unpleasant city.
13. KHAN Most Pathans use KHAN in their names which resembles COHEN used in Jewish names.Also in Israel there is a city called YOUNUS KHAN with the word KHAN in it.
14. TAKHT-E-SULEAMAN:This is the name of a place in the Pashtun area of Pakistan .It means the Throne of the Israeli King and also the Prophet Hazart Suleman (Alayhay Salam). This place is situated in the mountain ranges also named after King Solomon (Hazrat Suleman) as Koh-e-Suleman.
15. HARAT Also a place called HARA is mentioned in as the place of exile of the lost tribes and HARAT is a famous city in Afghanistan. Ref: (Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5). Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
16. KASH/KISH . Kish/Kash is is the name of numerous personalities mentioned in the Chronicles,all from the Bani-Israel,.like 1) A Levite of the family of Merari (1 Chr. 23:21; 24:29) ,(2.) A Benjamite of Jerusalem (1 Chr. 8:30; 9:36), (3.) A Levite in the time of Hezekiah (2 Chr. 29:12). In Afghanistan many places are named after Kash/Kish,like the desert of Dasht-I-Kash, lies in the north of the Helmund., the city of KASH which is mentioned in the map of Afghanistan 1912 in the Library of Congress USA, the main mountain ranges of Afghanistan also called the HINDU-KUSH and KASH ROD in Nimroz province .
17. MADIAN In Bible history, Madian was where Israeli Prophet Hazrat Musa(alayhay salam) spent the 40 years between the time that he left Egypt after killing an Egyptian who had been beating a Hebrew (Ref:Exodus 2:11-15). In the Pathan area of SWAT valley in Pakistan there is also a city with the same name as MADIAN.
18. DASHT-YAHOODI (The Jewish Plain) There is a famous place in the district MARDAN in Pakistan which is called Dasht-e-Yahoodi since its existence. (Reference : (H.W. Bellew, An Enquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, 34),
19. KILLA YAHOODI( THE FORT OF JEWS) TA place at the eastern boundry of the subcontinent (the Afghanistan border)is called KILLA YAHOODI (The fort of Jews) (Reference : (H.W. Bellew, An Enquiry into the Ethnography of Afghanistan, 34),
PLACES OF EXILE
In the he biblical Book Isaiah it is said :
Isaiah 11:11-12 :and he will raise a Banner to the Gentiles and will gather the banished of Israel ,and the dispersed of Judah will he bring together from the four corners of the earth".
The places of exile of the lost tribes also mentioned in the books also point out the present day Afghanistan
The Locations of the Exile. Other locations mentioned as placed of exile were the river Gozan, Habor, . Halah or Lahlah, and Hara. (Ref:Kings II,17 and 18; Chronicles 1,5).
Also check in Chronicles 5:26 at http://bible.cc/1_chronicles/5-26.htm
“The God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, and the spirit of Tilgath Pilneser king of Assyria, and he carried them away, even the Reubenites, and the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh, and brought them to Halah, and Habor, and Hara, and to the river of Gozan, to this day.”
Where are these places of Exile?
According to Saadia Gaon, “ River Gozan ” is the river north of the city of Balach in the north of Afghanistan. The river is known today as the “ Amu Darya ”, and is the border between Afghanistan and Russia. Afghanistan tradition states that the whole river was once known as the Gozen River.
“Habor” is located in the pass between Afghanistan and Pakistan , and is called Pesh-Habor in Afghani (Pesh means Pass) after the city of the pass. The city is known today as Peshawar.
“Hara” is the city of Harat near the Persian border. It is the third largest city in Afghanistan . The prophecy of Isaiah states that the exile will bring the tribes to the land of Sinim”:
“Behold , these shall come from far, and , lo, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Sinim “( Isaiah 49:12) .
This implies that the exile may have started
Afghan Jewry may date back 2,700 years to the destruction of the Temple and the Babylonian exile, but today only two known Jews remain in Afghanistan.
Several Jewish Afghan histories are circulating. Early biblical commentators regarded Khorasan as a location of the Ten Lost Tribes. Today, several Afghan tribes including the Durrani, Yussafzai, Afridi and Pashtun believe they are decedents of King Saul. They call themselves Bani-Israel, similar to the Hebrew, B'nai Israel, meaning the children of Israel. Even some Muslim scholars and writers accept this. The exiled Afghan Royal family also traces its roots to ancient Israel, the tribe of Benjamin specifically. As evidence, they cite Makhzan-i-Afghani , a chronicle published in 1635, in the time of King Jahangir by Khawaja Nimatullah of Herat.
The Pashtun, the main Afghan ethnic group and Taliban supporters, also believe they are descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel , and later converted to Islam. Dozens of Pashtun names and customs sound Jewish, from the Pashtun tribe names of Asheri and Naftali to the Pashtun custom of a wedding chupah and the circumcising of the sons on the eighth day after birth. The Pashtuns claim that the city of Kabul stands for "Cain and Abel" and Afghanistan is derived from "Afghana," the grandson of King Saul of the tribe of Benjamin.
Another book, Taaqati-Nasiri, states that in the 7th century, a people called Bani Israel settled in Ghor, southeast of Herat. According to Taaqati-Nasiri as well as Pashtun legend, the Bani Israel soon accepted Islam, after their leader, Qais, met with the Muslim Prophet Mohammed.
Other reports tell of Persian Jews rejecting Islam and fleeing the Muslim conquest in the 7th and 8th centuries and settling in Afghanistan. In 1080, Moses ibn Ezra mentioned more than 40,000 Jews paying tribute in Ghazni, a great city on the River Gozan. Benjamin of Tudela, writing approximately 100 years later, echoed this claim, adding that there were 80,000 Jews living there.
Stone tablets with Hebrew inscriptions dating from 1115 to 1215 confirm the existence of a Jewish community in Firoz Koh, located between Herat and Kabul. Genghis Kahn's 1222 Mongol invasion, however, razed Afghanistan, devastating the Jewish communities. Little is known about the small and isolated Jewish community of Afghanistan that remained until the 19th century.
In 1839, thousands of Jews again fled Persia, where the Muslim authorities began forcibly converting them, bringing Afghanistan's Jewish population up to 40,000. They were mostly traders and dyers dealing in skins, carpets and antiquities.
The decline came in 1870 after Afghan Muslim authorities enacted anti-Jewish measures, triggering a mass exodus to Central Asia, Persia and Palestine. The 1933 assassination of King Nadit Shah triggered another anti-Jewish campaign. Jews were banished from most Afghan cities, limiting them to Kabul, Balkh or Herat. In addition, Jews were forbidden to leave town without a permit and forced to pay special taxes.
By the time Israel was created in 1948, approximately 5,000 Jews remained in Afghanistan, but they could not legally immigrate. Once the restriction was lifted in 1951, most Afghan Jews made their way to Israel. By 1969, only 300 Jews lived in Afghanistan, most of whom left in 1979 after the Soviet invasion. In 1996, 10 Jews remained in Afghanistan, nearly all in Kabul.
In 2005, there were two Jews in Afghanistan. Zebulon Simentov and Isaac Levy lived at separate ends of the same decaying synagogue in Kabul. The synagogue was built 40 years earlier and probably avoided being destroyed by the Taliban because it was unassuming, deserted, and in disrepair. Simentov and Levy said they were protecting the synagogue, and each claimed to be the rightful owner of the Torah and accused the other of stealing it. This feud was so heated that both men spent time in Taliban jails for charges they brought against each other, and were beaten with electric cables and rifle butts. Meanwhile, the Taliban confiscated the Torah. Levy relied on charity to get by, while Simentov, 41, owned a store that sold carpets, jewelry and handicrafts. Both men said they got along with their Muslim neighbors.
Levy said he wanted to join his family in Israel, but couldn't afford to leave. After the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Jewish groups offered to help Levy emigrate, but he refused. In January 2005, Levy died.
Now Simentov is the last Jew in Afghanistan. In 2001, he said the Taliban stoll all his supplies and he had to close his store. He says he now has nothing and lives “like a dog.” He has devoted himself to trying to recover the Torah stolen by the Taliban, and enlisted the help of the U.S. Embassy and Afghan Interior Ministry. He said he was told the man who stole the Torah is now in U.S. custody in Cuba. Simentov's wife and two daughters live in Israel and, after Levy's death, said he was considering joining his family.
More than 10,000 Jews of Afghan descent now live in Israel. The second largest population of Afghan Jews is New York, with 200 families. They mostly live in Flushing, Jamaica and Queens. Rabbi Jacob Nasirov leads the Orthodox congregation of Anshei Shalom, the lone Afghan synagogue in the United States. Members have roots not only from Afghanistan, but also Yemen, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Morocco and Lebanon.
Sources: New York Times, Washington Post, Encyclopedia Judaica, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, World Jewish Congress, Moshiach.com, Jewish Bulletin News
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