One Man’s Mission to not allow the remnants of Afghanistan’s second largest city’s Jewish past become Archaeological remains.

Standing among the hundred and fifty remaining grave stones in Herat’s Jewish cemetery, Shlomo felt compelled to do something to protect what’s left of a once large Jewish community in Afghanistan. “If I didn’t see it I wouldn’t be doing this,” he says. “If I didn’t go and see the bones coming up I wouldn’t be trying to save the synagogues.”

There are four synagogues left in Herat, Afghanistan’s second largest city. Herat stands along the old Silk Route in the west of the country. Stones from the synagogues have been used as building material for new structures and the natural decay that comes without a local Jewish community to keep up their past has left the Synagogues in very bad shape, according to survey commissioned by the International Survey of Jewish Monuments in 1998.

Shlomo left Herat when he was ten. “In Afghanistan the archaeological site is still above ground,” he says. “There is no reason to come back in 500 years to just find bits and fragments.”

Shlomo believes that 10,000 Jews once lived in Herat. There are still street signs indicating the Jewish neighborhood, mahalla-yi musahiya, and the old Jewish bath, haamma-e yehudiaha, has been converted for male Muslim youth.

The Jews of Afghanistan were well placed on the silk route. “I remember seeing a caravan of camels coming through,” Shlomo says. “You could hear the bells. It was fascinating watch them go buy… hundreds of camels."

The story of Jews in Afghanistan can be traced back as far as 2,000 years. It was widely believed that Pashtun peoples were derived from one of the Lost Tribes of Israel, but DNA testing has shown no link between Pashtuns and Jews. In the 12th century there were as many as 80,000 Jews in Afghanistan. But when Genghis Khan came riding through the numbers were greatly reduced.  The population resurged to 40,000 after a wave of Jews found refuge from Persia (Wikipedia).

For different reasons the population reduced it's numbers to 5,000 in 1948. Many then immigrated to Israel. By 1969 the population was 300. The Soviet invasion in 1979 caused almost all to leave and by 1996 only two remained. Today’s population stands at one, out of 30 millions Afghanis.

Afghani Jews went mostly to Israel and Queens, NY. There are six Afghani Jewish congregations in Israel. Queen's congregation Anshei Shalom is the only one in America. I asked Shlomo what the Afghan Jewish population in Vancouver is like. “The Jewish population? It’s me,” he says with a chuckle.

He still thinks Afghanistan is a beautiful country and - with stabilization - believes that tourists will go there as they once did. “The synagogues are a vanishing Jewel,” he says. “When you go to a foreign country and see a Bet Knesset or a Magen David you feel good inside, you get excited to go into those places.” Shlomo’s hope is that he can raise enough resources so that visiting Jews and the few Jews that are currently in the country (soldiers and journalists) can have a place to go to practice.

His hope is to speak with the governor and get funds to begin repairs on one of the Synagogues and then begin work on the cemetery.

I called and asked the Afghan embassy what they think about the idea of Jews coming to repair damaged synagogues and coming back to the country. “All people--Jews included--have the right to freely worship in Afghanistan,” said an official from the Afghan Embassy in Washington D.C. “A large population of Hindus fled the country during the fighting of the past decades and have returned to start a normal life in Afghanistan. They contribute to Afghanistan’s economy and politics; one member of the Afghanistan Independent Election Commission is a Hindu, and we welcome the continued participation of all Afghans in public service.”

While it is unclear of whether or not Afghani Jews will ever go back to live, Shlomo is trying to make sure that visitors to Afghanistan and Herat can see how Jews were integrated into Afghani society.