Where did the Jews of Afghanistan go?

Why did they leave tolerant Islamic Afghanistan?

Ancient Jewish scrolls found in north Afghanistan Reuters (hat tip Robert Spencer)

KABUL (Reuters) - A cache of ancient Jewish scrolls from northern Afghanistan that has only recently come to light is creating a storm among scholars who say the landmark find could reveal an undiscovered side of medieval Jewry.

The 150 or so documents, dated from the 11th century, were found in Afghanistan's Samangan province and most likely smuggled out -- a sorry but common fate for the impoverished and war-torn country's antiquities.

Israeli emeritus professor Shaul Shaked, who has examined some of the poems, commercial records and judicial agreements that make up the treasure, said while the existence of ancient Afghan Jewry is known, their culture was still a mystery.

"Here, for the first time, we see evidence and we can actually study the writings of this Jewish community. It's very exciting," Shaked told Reuters by telephone from Israel, where he teaches at the Comparative Religion and Iranian Studies department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The hoard is currently being kept by private antique dealers in London, who have been producing a trickle of new documents over the past two years, which is when Shaked believes they were found and pirated out of Afghanistan in a clandestine operation.

It is likely they belonged to Jewish merchants on the Silk Road running across Central Asia, said T. Michael Law, a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University's Center for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

"They might have been left there by merchants travelling along the way, but they could also come from another nearby area and deposited for a reason we do not yet understand," Law said.

"SOLD ELSEWHERE FOR TEN TIMES MORE"

Cultural authorities in Kabul had mixed reactions to the find, which scholars say is without a doubt from Afghanistan, arguing that the Judeo-Persian language used on the scrolls is similar to other Afghan Jewish manuscripts.

National Archives director Sakhi Muneer outright denied the find was Afghan, arguing that he would have seen it, but an advisor in the Culture Ministry said it "cannot be confirmed but it is entirely possible."

"A lot of old documents and sculptures are not brought to us but are sold elsewhere for ten times the price," said advisor Jalal Norani, explaining that excavators and ordinary people who stumble across finds sell them to middlemen who then auction them off in Iran, Pakistan and Europe.

"Unfortunately, we cannot stop this," Norani said. The Culture Ministry, he said, pays on average $1,500 for a recovered antique item. The Hebrew University's Shaked estimated the Jewish documents' worth at several million dollars.

Thirty years of war and conflict have severely hindered both the collecting and preserving of Afghanistan's antiquities, and the Culture Ministry said endemic corruption and poverty meant many new discoveries do not even reach them.

Comments

[JamestheFin]

Sadly, the fate of the Jews in Islamic lands mirrors the fate all non-Muslims in Islamic lands-Christians, Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Zoroastrians, animists, et al. Muslims may at times show some kindness towards the non-Muslims they rule over, but even then the Muslims will never consider nor treat any non-Muslim as an equal deserving equal treatment under the law-so far as anyone can actually call Sharia, "law". No, the very basis of Islam is about contempt, hatred, and discrimination of all non-Muslims and even Muslim women.

This contempt and hatred of the 'other' even applies to the art and culture of all non-Muslims. Witness the destruction of Bamiyan Buddha's and countless other Buddhist and Hindu temples across the once Buddhist and Hindu lands of Afghanistan and Pakistan. I shudder at the thought of what would happen to Europe's art and cultural artifacts should Islam conquer Europe.

[meira750]

I have a Pashto friend who knows her family heritage dates back to the tribe of Ephraim even tho she is a practicing Moslem. She even knows the town her ancestors are from, which is currently in Syria, just east of the Golan. Very interesting and she does not hate Jews. Pray for her, she started a Master's program in Egypt before the "Spring" and has 4 mos to go. She's very scared but she's savvy and in Alexandria at least.

[usman]

i guess ur thoughts are based on the books available to you, or few of the history books available there may be baised ones. if u could go through the islamic system, u would find that there is no way that muslims do not respect other religions. it amounts to promoting hatred against each other.

[KKKK]

"tolerante Islamic Afghanistan." uh...sicne WHEN has occuiped Afghanistan been "tolerant?" under shaira, the elgal system of Afghanistan, no-one may leave islam by pain of death, and women ned for male witnesses to prove a rape.

[Hannah]

The idea (as predicted by many for decades) is to erase all traces of civilizations that had existed before them. Remember the centuries' old Buddhist statues that were destroyed? Another old library in Egypt torched and dismantled? The list is vast. Please remember that prior to 1932 when the British Led League of Nations created via blackmail the illegal country called Saudi Arabia (when Yemen was to not be touched or shortened - FACT) and other such illegalities to follow in 1947 [Pakistan] 1948 [except for Israel that was planned, approved, and bought for] along with other pro-Muslim Brotherhood entities to follow, the ideology was not that horrible as it had become. The Ottoman Empire was no picnic which is true (Armenian Genocide that included a mass murderer who would be British picked to be the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem [and was not even from Jerusalem but again from EGYPT], yet if one compares what is going on around the world today in the 21st century compared to life under the Ottoman's you'll see quite a difference. And NO I am not