>She told a story of how folks negotiated
>how much a window would be open on a bus in Israel-- one person would slam
>it open, one would slam it shut, and somehow they'd eventually settle on it
>partly being open. But it was never pretty.
Financial Times - December 3, 2001
NEIGHBOURS: Last two Jews in Kabul By REUTERS: AGENCY MATERIAL
Yitzhak Levy and Zebolan Simanto say they are the last two Jews in Afghanistan and they hate each other with a vengeance.
"Yitzhak and the Taliban, they're the same," said Mr Simanto, 41, pressing the tips of two fingers together to make the point.
Across the courtyard of a crumbling apartment building on Flower Street that used to be home to a community of some 30 Jewish families, Mr Levy is just as bitter about his neighbour.
The building has no glass in its windows, no running water and two synagogues, one that Mr Simanto climbs into through a window frame and another that Mr Levy keeps under lock and key.
"All my problems are because of Zebolan", said Mr Levy, a squat man with a flowing white beard and battered sheepskin Astrakhan hat, who gave his age as 60.
He recites a litany of woes capped by accusations that the only other Jew in Kabul had denounced him to the Taliban as a spy for Israel and landed him in jail five times.
Mr Levy, a traditional healer born in the western city of Herat, remained in Kabul when the Taliban took over in 1996.
Mr Simanto, a dealer in carpets also from Herat, spent six years travelling in Israel, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. He returned to Kabul in 1998. Both say their wives are in Israel.
Muslim neighbours regard the pair with a mixture of affection and amusement. At night, they say they can hear them shout, hurling abuse and charges of treachery and immorality at each other like some unhappy couple imprisoned in a marriage gone sour.