Afghanistan's last Jew leaves after Taliban takeover

The last member of Afghanistan’s Jewish community has left the country

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The last member of Afghanistan's Jewish community has left the country. Zebulon 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 rapidly dwindled. But the Taliban takeover last month seems to have been the last straw. Moti Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman who runs a private security group that organized the evacuation, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the 62-year-old Simentov and 29 of his neighbors, nearly all of them women and children, have been taken to a “neighboring country.” Kahana said Simentov, who had lived under Taliban rule before, was not worried about them. But Kahana warned him that he was at risk of being kidnapped or killed by the far more radical Islamic State group. He said Simentov's neighbors also pressed him to leave, so that their children could join him on the bus out.