Woman now thought to be Afghanistan’s last Jew flees country

By ILAN BEN ZION and LLAZAR SEMINI
Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — For years, Zebulon Simentov branded himself as the “last Jew of Afghanistan,” the sole remnant of a centuries-old community. He left the country last month for Istanbul after the Taliban seized power, but now it seems he wasn’t the last one. His distant cousin, 83-year-old Tova Moradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived there until last week. She had run away from home and married a Muslim man at the age of 16 but never converted. Fearing for their safety, Moradi and her extended family fled the country in recent weeks in an escape orchestrated by an Israeli aid group, activists and Jewish philanthropists.