‘Huge’ find sheds light on Silk Road

THOUSAND-YEAR-OLD documents found in an Afghan cave in an area now controlled by the Taliban are the first physical evidence of a Jewish community in the region.

Last week, Israel’s National Library unveiled its acquisition of 29 fragments of the “Afghan Genizah”, named after the so-called “Cairo Genizah” — a set of ancient Hebrew documents found in Egypt.

Genizah is a Hebrew word that refers to a synagogue’s antechamber where liturgical documents were stored before they could receive a proper burial.

The discovery of the 11th century Afghan documents is “monumental”, according to Professor Haggai BenShammai, the Academic Director of Israel’s National Library, because it provides direct evidence of a Jewish presence along the Silk Road.

“We haven’t had any evidence of Jewish life in Khorasan, just physical evidence of Jewish death,” Professor Ben-Shammai said, citing a number of Jewish cemeteries found in the area. Officially, only one Jew remains in Afghanistan today.

Documentary The Gatekeepers, a history of Israel built around candid interviews with six former internal security chiefs, has been named best non-fiction film of 2012 by the National Society of Film Critics in the US