KABUL, Nov 30: In the heart of town on Flower Street, in what was the capital’s synagogue, live the two remaining Jews of Kabul. And they hate each other.

Isaac Levy, with a long white beard, says he is 60 years old but looks 75. Zabulon Simantow admits to 41 and only a few days ago shaved off his beard that was once de rigeur under the ousted Taliban regime.

The two men have been at each other’s throats for years with quarrels so intense they sometimes had to be settled by Islamic courts.

Zabulon is the garrulous one and provides some local history. “The Jews were here for more than 800 years. It’s written in the books,” he says.

“When Israel became independent, the people here left. But before the communists there were still 100 Jewish families, right here in Kabul. There were also 400-500 Jews in Herat (in the west).”

Zabulon lives in a dilapidated room in a dusty old building turned into a synagogue with a prayer room for women above.

The Star of David is omnipresent; in the wrought-iron railings that flank the stairs, in a window adorning a dull cement wall.

He lives alone; his wife and two daughters, aged eight and seven, left for Israel six years ago.

The feud with Isaac began three years before that when Zabulon went to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent to get married. Isaac was said to have sold all his belongings, pretending they had been stolen by burglars.

Zabulon started to mope around, selling copper antiques through a brother in Germany. But his problems with Isaac were not over.

Isaac, he says, also stole the synagogue’s torah in order to sell it, blaming the theft on Zabulon. An 18-judge Taliban tribunal acquitted Zabulon of the crime but kept the torah, he says.

“It’s worth about five million dollars. It dates back five centuries. It’s handwritten on leather parchment.”

Zabulon suggests that some Taliban might have also tried to sell the torah, bringing it to the eastern city of Jalalabad to negotiate with potential buyers in Pakistan.

He thinks the torah is still in Kabul, at the interior ministry of the Northern Alliance’s “Islamic State” which replaced the Taliban “Islamic Emirate” two weeks ago.

The war between the two men didn’t stop there.

“Since I won the trial, he accused me of being a spy for Israel. It’s very serious,” Zabulon says. He did not say how he got out of the jam but insists the Taliban didn’t know he was Jewish.

The merchants of Chicken Street, Kabul’s antiques center where Zabulon is known as “the Jew,” say he is lying. “Everybody knew he was Jewish. Some of the Taliban even tried to convert him,” says one salesman. Zabulon turns a deaf ear.

He says he understands only Dari, a local Persian dialect, and does not speak Hebrew. But he also claims to read the torah “following along with my finger,” and punctuates his sentences with “ken,” which means “yes” in Hebrew.

He says he prays every day, not only on the Sabbath. And Zabulon accuses Isaac of wanting to change the synagogue into a house of prostitution.

“When the Jews come back to Kabul, those who were working with rubies, emeralds and lapis-lazuli” — all local stones — “will transform the synagogue into diamonds,” he says, swearing on the Bible.

Isaac grumbles. He doesn’t have a whole lot to say and lets Zabulon do the talking. So Zabulon goes on about his nemesis: “He’s not a rabbi, don’t say that. He’s a false mullah.” Isaac has lived in Kabul for 26 years and his family is from Herat. He shows off the synagogue for which he has the key.

He proudly displays the plaques carrying the name of the community’s dead.

Each comes with a lamp that the families must light ritually. But most of the light bulbs have blown and the lamp shades are askew.

The synagogue was built in 1964. Fifteen years later all the Jews had left.

All except Zabulon and Isaac.—AFP