The man, known as the last Jew of Kabul, may soon move to Israel, after agreeing to grant his estranged wife a religious divorce in a Zoom call – a precondition for smooth entry into the Holy Land.
Zebulon Simentov, who fled Afghanistan last month after a Taliban takeover, arrived in Turkey on Sunday, which his defense team says is the last stop before a trip to Israel, perhaps as early as this week.
It covers a week-long odyssey that includes an exodus from his homeland as well as a videoconferenced divorce process meant to ensure he doesn’t get into trouble with the Israeli authorities.
Under Jewish religious law, a husband must agree to divorce his wife, something he has refused to do for many years. Facing the prospect of legal action in Israel, where his ex-wife lives, Simentov, after years of protest, finally agreed to a divorce last month in a special Zoom call overseen by Australian rabbinical authorities.
The Associated Press watched part of the proceedings. During the sometimes chaotic discussion, conducted through an interpreter who struggled to explain the process, Simentov agrees to sign a divorce document known as a “received”, this After getting assurances that he would not face trouble in Israel.
Rabbi Moshe Margaretan, whose non-profit group Tzedek Association funded the trip, said Sementov had spent the past few weeks quietly in Pakistan, an Islamic country that does not have diplomatic ties with Israel.
He said that his group had looked at bringing Simentov to the US, but decided that Israel was a better destination, because of difficulties in arranging a US entry visa and because Simentov has many relatives, including five siblings. and two daughters, who are already in Israel.
“We are relieved that we were able to help Zebulon Sementov escape from Afghanistan and now to safety in Turkey,” said Margaretan, whose group has helped evacuate several dozen others from Afghanistan. “Zebulon’s life was in danger in Afghanistan.”
Rabbi Mendi Chitrik, chairman of the Coalition of Rabbis in the Islamic States, greeted Sementov at the airport in Istanbul on Sunday.
He said he had time to take Sementov to the Israeli consulate on Monday so that he could arrange for his entry into Israel. Under Israel’s “Law of Return”, any Jew is entitled to Israeli citizenship.
Chitrik said he had been working with Margaretton and other volunteers for several months to get Sementov out of Afghanistan. “I’m glad this issue is finally coming to an end,” he said.
It is not clear how long this will take. Israel’s foreign ministry said it was unaware of the request and that Simentov may also have been delayed by coronavirus protocols restricting entry into Israel.
Simentov, who lived in a dilapidated synagogue in Kabul, kept kosher and prayed in Hebrew, endured decades of war as the country’s centuries-old Jewish community was rapidly declining. But it seems the Taliban takeover in August was the last straw.
Moti Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman who runs a private firm that organizes evacuations on Margaret’s behalf, told The Associated Press last month that Simentov was not concerned about the Taliban as he had previously lived under their rule. He said threats from the more radical Islamic State group and pressure from their rescued neighbors helped persuade him to leave.
Hebrew manuscripts found in caves in northern Afghanistan indicate that a thriving Jewish community existed there at least 1,000 years ago. At the end of the 19th century, Afghanistan was home to some 40,000 Jews, many of whom were Persian Jews who had fled forcibly converting to neighboring Iran. The community’s decline began with the exodus to Israel after its creation in 1948.
In a 2009 interview with the Associated Press, Simentov stated that the last Jewish family moved after the 1979 Soviet invasion.
For many years they shared the synagogue building with the country’s only other Jew, Isaac Levi, but they despised each other and clashed during the previous Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001.
At one point, Levi accused Simentov of stealing and spying, and Simentov accused Levi of renting rooms to prostitutes, a charge he denied, as The New York Times reported in 2002. The Taliban arrested and beat both men, and they seized the synagogue. The ancient Torah scroll, which disappeared after the Taliban was ousted from power in the US-led invasion of 2001.
When his 80-year-old housewife died in 2005, Simentov said he was happy to get rid of her.
Reporters visiting Simentov – and paying the exorbitant fees he charged for the interview – found a modest man fond of whiskey, who kept a pet porridge and watched Afghan TV. He followed Jewish dietary restrictions and ran a kebab shop.
Born in 1959 in the western city of Herat, he has always insisted that Afghanistan is home.
The Taliban, like other Islamist militant groups, are hostile to Israel, but tolerated the country’s small Jewish community during their previous reign.
Source: Independent
