cNutgroist

i'm on holiday, innit. that's why there's no blogging. nothing to do with a lack of interest or inspiration. hell no.
here's a heartwarming little story with an absolute killer last line to be getting on with.

1:29pm (UK)
And Then There Was One - Afghanistan's Jewish Feud Is Over

"PA"

The caretaker of Afghanistan’s only functioning synagogue – and the country’s second-to-last Jew – has died after years of bitter feuding with the only other survivor of a once-thriving community.

Ishaq Levin, aged about 80, died, apparently of natural causes, in his quarters in the small synagogue in Kabul, said his 45-year-old Jewish neighbour, Zebulon Simentov.

The body would soon be flown to Israel for burial at the behest of Levin’s relatives – via Uzbekistan, because Israel and Afghanistan have no diplomatic relations, Interior Ministry spokesman Latfullah Mashal said.

Afghanistan’s Jewish community numbered as many as 40,000 in the late 19th century, after Persian Jews fled forced conversion. But by the mid-20th century, only about 5,000 remained, and most emigrated after Israel’s creation in 1948.

According to Simentov, the last eight or nine families left following the 1979 Soviet invasion. But Levin – the synagogue’s shamash, or caretaker – stayed on, even through the repressive rule of the Taliban.

Simentov said he took up residence in the synagogue, built around a concrete courtyard in the centre of the city, after returning from Turkmenistan in 1992 to deal in carpets, but quickly fell out with the older man.

Before his death, Levin told reporters he had been jailed and beaten under the Taliban, and denounced Simentov for claiming he had converted to Islam in a bid to take possession of the synagogue.

But Simentov insists he too was jailed and beaten after Levin told the Taliban he was an Israeli spy.

He also blames Levin for the loss of the synagogue’s most sacred treasure – a Torah confiscated by the Taliban. Simentov says Levin wanted to sell the holy book, and provoked the Taliban into taking it by telling Muslim women their fortunes.

Police have said the scroll was in the hands of a former Taliban minister now believed to be incarcerated in the American military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

But the heart of the argument appears to have been control of the synagogue, which includes the two men’s quarters as well as a bare prayer room where the prized Torah was kept.

Simentov produced what he said was a letter from Afghan Jews living in Israel ordering Levin to give the caretakership of the premises. He said he felt no sadness at the passing of his sparring partner.

“He was a very bad man who tried to get me killed,” he said, grinning as he warmed his feet on a diesel-burning stove in his run-down living room. “Now I am the Jew here, I am the boss.”

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