Funny, If it Weren't So Sad

This would be funny if it weren't so sad. No, sorry, it is funny: Zebulon Simentov, 47, is the last Jew in Afghanistan (link). But remember the story about the old Jew who kept two schuls in his back yard--one for worship, and "the other whose doorstep I will not cross, so help me God!" Now this:

The only other Jew in Afghanistan, Yitzhak Levin, died in 2005. The pair had lived together in a shabby synagogue on Flower Street throughout the Soviet invasion, a civil war and the fundamentalist Islamic Taliban government, but grew to hate each other. They held separate services, had vicious shouting matches neighbors could hear a block away, and when valuable Torah scrolls went missing, each blamed the other.

They also denounced each other to the Taliban as spies for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, prompting Taliban police to beat them with rifle butts and jail them on occasion.

Simentov says the fight broke out nearly a decade ago when Jewish elders told him to take Levin - more than 20 years his senior - to Israel. Levin would not budge, and each man accused the other of wanting to sell the synagogue for profit. Simentov is the legal owner and plans to refurbish the 42-year-old building.

The feud was so intense that Afghan police suspected Simentov of murdering Levin when he died, until a post-mortem examination proved that he had died from diabetes.

Conflict is a kind of initmacy. Must be lonely out there.