The Last Two Jews In Afghanistan

A video about the peculiar tale of the last two Jews in Afghanistan

Kofi link: https://ko-fi.com/stoicstick

The Last 2 Jews in Afghanistan Transcript:
Today we are going to be talking about the last 2 jews in Afghanistan, now the reason why I even know about this topic is that the youtube algorithm had blessed me sometime in the last month and recommended me this video, I think it randomly hit the algorithm lottery as many of the other comments are from people also watching it in 2024. Anyway the video is about 2 jews one called yitshak levi and the other zabulon simantov and let me just show you the clip to introduce you to them are how funny they are. For context theres this Romanian journalist filming for his documentary cabal in Kabul and hes interviewing Yitzhak and you can just see how the conversation goes. I love how as soon as he is mentioned he immediately goes to cursing him no questions asked, its even funnier because they both live in separate wings of the same synagogue and they just argue all the time. Hahahhaah. Now I find this particularly funny because in my racial slurs video I had like 500 comments telling me goy isnt used as a slur but here we can see it pretty hilariously used. Triple goy lmao. I speak farsi and its honestly funnier in persian and I tried to put my own translation but it doesnt capture all of the meaning. So that’s our first introduction to both zabulon and yitzhak. Why they are both the last jews in Afghanistan is pretty complex but a simple explanation is that when the soviets invaded most of the jews left for occupied palestine and other countries. Zabulon stayed until 1990 when the Taliban tookover which is why he fled to occupied palestine but only to then return after 2 months, after returning he found yitshak moved into the synagogue and they immediately hated eachother and fought over who rightfully owned the land. I mean jews and fighting over land stop me if you have heard this one before. In 1998 yitshak wrote to the Taliban interior minister accusing zabulon of stealing jewish artifacts from the synagogue. Zabulon responded by saying that yitshak ran a brothel and sold alcohol both of which are punishable by death in afghanistan. Zabulon was even quoted as saying “ I don’t talk to him hes the devil” and that “a dog is better than him… I don’t have many complaints about the Taliban but I have a lot of complaints about him. Yitshak responded by calling him a thief and a liar. The Taliban fed up with their shenagians imprisoned them both but eventually had to release them because they were being too annoying, that’s got to be a first being so annoying that the Taliban just release you from jail because they couldn’t be bothered to deal with your bs. Zabulon claims that the torah from the synagogue was stolen by the Taliban and sold on the black market whilst they were both imprisoned but yitshak claims it was zabulon. Now if you couldn’t tell both yitshak and zabulon are what we call unreliable narrators. They both lie a lot. Zabulon claims he wants to reclaim the torah for the synagogue but he was purported to go around asking how much that the torah might be worth at an international auction you know as you do about things that you do not plan to sell. Theres also this B plot about zabulon with his wife which is that the reason why some speculate that he wont go back to occupied palestine is because his wife wants to divorce him which he doesn’t want., and because in jewish law only a man can offer the divorce to the wife she is just kinda in limbo and was in limbo for 2 decades. That was until 2021 when zabulon was evacuated due to the Taliban retaking control, and part of the deal to evacuate him was that he had to give his wife the divorce, which he did over zoom kinda proving that he didn’t want to get that divorce if it was that easy lol. Yitshaks wife also wanted a divorce, I sensing a theme here, which he blames on zabulon stating that “He has written to my wife telling her that I married another woman here, and that's why my wife is angry with me now” both zabulon and yitshak wives hate them but obviously its both the other persons fault. Another of Zabulons hilarious quotes about yitshak is “He lies, he's lying all the time. He transformed this synagogue into a brothel. He says that he wants to go to israel, but this is not true. Even if the Jews came here and tied his hands and feet and put him on an airplane, he would not go to israel. This dirty old man has not washed himself for six full months, I tell you, for six months.". Lmao this part just cracks me up he just had to add that last insult because why not lol. When one of the Taliban officials were asked by reporters about Zabulon and yitshak, “he could not hide his grin.” Quoted as saying “Yes, I remember them, they caused me a lot of problems,”. I feel like that’s somehow an understatement