Woman thought to be Afghanistan’s last Jew flees the country for Albania

For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the "last Jew of Afghanistan". 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. Mr Simentov's distant cousin, Tova Moradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived there until last week. Fearing for their safety, Mrs Moradi, her children and nearly two dozen grandchildren fled the country in recent weeks in an escapeorchestratedbyanisraeliaidgroup,activistsandjewish philanthropists.

"I loved my country, loved it very much, but had to leave because my children were in danger," Moradi said 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.

Mrs Moradi, 83, was one of ten children born to a Jewish family in Kabul. At 16, she ran awayfromhomeandmarrieda Muslim.sheneverconvertedto Islam,maintainedsomejewish traditions and it was no secret that she was Jewish.

"She never denied her Judaism, she just got married in order to save her life as you cannot be safe as a young girl in Afghanistan," her daughter Khorshid said from her home in Canada, where she and three of her siblings moved after the Taliban first seized power in Afghanistan in the 1990s.

Despite friction over her decision to marry outside the faith, Mrs Moradi stayed in touch with some of her family over the years. Her parents and siblings fled Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1980s. Her parents are buried at Jerusalem's Har Menuhot cemetery and many of her surviving siblings and their descendants live in Israel. But until this week she had not spoken to some of her sisters in over half a century.

"Yesterday, I saw my sisters, nieces and nephews after around 60 years through a videocall.wespokeforhours,"mrs Moradi said. "I was really happy.isawtheirchildrenandthey met mine."

Khorshid said: "They said, ‘It's like she came back from the grave’."

During the first period of Taliban rule, from 1996 until the 2001 Us-led invasion, Mrs Moradi tried to maintain a low profile.butsheriskedherlifeby hiding Rabbi Isaak Levi, one of thefewremainingafghanjews, from the Taliban.

Rabbi Levi and Mr Simentov lived together for years in the decrepit synagogue in Kabul but famously despised one another and fought often. The Taliban usually left them alone butintervenedduringonesuch dispute,arrestingthem,beating them and confiscating the synagogue's ancient Torah scroll.

Israaid CEO Yotam Polizer saidtheorganisation,whichhas provided relief after disasters such as the Japanese tsunami in 2011 and the Ebola outbreak in west Africa, had already extracted the Afghan women's cyclingteamanddozensofother Afghans from the country when it heard about Mrs Moradi and her family.

He said Afghan diplomats overseas,israelipresidentisaac Herzog'sofficeandjewishbusinessmenworkedtogethertoget themout.nowmrsmoradiand six of her relatives are in Albania.