Then There Were None: Afghanistan’s Last Jew Escapes Kabul for Freedom in U.S.

Afghanistan’s last remaining Jew, 62-year-old Zebulon Simantov, has finally fled the country after years of withstanding threats from the Taliban.

Footage obtained by Israel’s Kan public broadcaster shows Simantov and more than two dozen women and children escaping to a nearby country where they will likely head to the U.S.

למי שפספס, הכתבה שלי ושל @Yoav__Zehavi מ-#חדשותהערב של @kann_news עם התיעודים הבלעדיים מעזיבתו של זבולון סימן טוב היהודי האחרון באפגניסטאן, כולל תיעוד שלו היום אחרי שחצה את הגבול עם עוד עשרות אפגנים למדינה שכנה בדרכו כך נראה לארה"ב @motikahana pic.twitter.com/2wTMlX0WyC

— roi kais • روعي كايس • רועי קייס (@kaisos1987) September 7, 2021

Despite threats to his life and having served prison sentences four times over his faith, as recently as last month Simantov vowed again that he’d never leave his home.

“If I left, there would have been no one to maintain the synagogue. I had the opportunity to leave for the US but wasn’t interested,” Simantov told the India-based WION network last month.

However, he changed his mind when he was asked to rescue his neighbors.

“What changed his mind finally is that his neighbors said to him go, and take our children with you because they are also in danger,” Israeli-American businessman Moti Kahana, who runs a private security company that extracted Simantov, said.

The Taliban’s spokesman last month assured that Simantov would be safe if he stayed, but according to Kahana, Simantov’s “problem isn’t the Taliban, but Islamic State, al-Qaeda.”

“In his case it’s the other crazies that emerge each day now,” Kahana told Kan. “He fears them,” he added.

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish American, Moshe Margaretten, funded the operation. Margaretten works to help Jews escape danger.

“Moshe Margaretten please take me to New York with God’s help,” Simantov says in the video.

The report said he would likely end up in Israel.