For years, Zevulun Simantov branded himself as "the last Jew of Afghanistan."
He was interviewed by the major media in the world, and the story of his departure last month caused a great deal of controversy.
But it turns out he was not the last.
The Associated Press reported that Symantov's distant cousin, Tova Muradi, was born and raised in Kabul and lived in the city until last week, more than a month after Symantov left in September.
Last week, she and nearly 20 of her grandchildren fled the country with the help of an Israeli aid organization and prominent Jewish activists.
Hope to immigrate to Israel and pray at her parents' graves in Jerusalem, Photo: AP
"I had to leave because my children were in danger," she told the Associated Press in an interview from Albania, where she lives in a resort that has been converted into makeshift homes for some 2,000 Afghan refugees.
The 83-year-old is one of ten children of a Jewish family in Kabul, but at the age of 16 she ran away from home and married a Muslim man.
She never converted to Islam, and maintained some of the Jewish traditions of her father's house.
According to her daughter, Hurshid, she did not hide her Judaism but got married to save her life, and it was no secret in the neighborhood that she was Jewish.
Muradi noted that her parents and brother fled Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1980s, and that her parents are buried in the Mount of Beatitudes Cemetery in Jerusalem.
Many of her surviving brothers and their descendants live in Israel.
Last weekend, after about 60 years, she talked to her sisters and their children through the video.
"It's like she came back from the grave," her daughter Horshid said.
Almost the last Jew in the country.
Zebulon Simantov.
Photo: Getty Images,
The reason Muradi fled the country is partly because she hid Rabbi Isaac Levy, one of the few Jews in the country, from the Taliban.
For a month she hid him, and when the Taliban came to look for him, her family members said he was a Muslim.
She made preparations for the smuggling of Levy from Afghanistan but his health deteriorated and he died.
When the Taliban regained control of the country last August it began to fear retaliation.
The AP notes that she was smuggled through a man named Joseph Friedberg and the Israid organization, an Israeli humanitarian organization that operates around the world.
The effort to flee Murady and her family was made through Afghan diplomats, by President Yitzhak Herzog, and by Jewish businessmen, including Alexander Mashkevich and Sylvan Adams.
Muradi hopes to come from Albania to Canada, to reunite with her children who live in the country, and expressed hope that she can visit Israel, see her family members and pray at her parents' graves in Jerusalem.