Nadene Goldfoot
There is a strong tradition, oral and written, that some of today's Pashtuns of Afghanistan came from King Saul, Israel's very first king. We find this in a book published in 1635 titled MAHSAN-I-AFGHANI. " Today, several Afghan tribes including the Durrani, Yussafzai, Afridi and Pashtun believe they are decedents of . They call themselves Bani-Israel, similar to the Hebrew, B'nai Israel, meaning the . Even some scholars and writers accept this. The exiled Afghan Royal family also traces its roots to ancient Israel, the tribe of specifically. As evidence, they cite Makhzan-i-Afghani , a chronicle published in 1635, in the time of King Jahangir by Khawaja Nimatullah of Herat.
The traditional story is that it all started with Saul being chosen as king from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul was the son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin. The prophet, Samuel, was a seer, a man of vision and highly trusted by his people who had no king over them. Instead, they relied on regional leaders to advised their people who relied on their memories of the rules handed down in their families from Moses, leader of the Israelites out of bondage of 400 years from Egypt who had lived in Canaan previously to their enslavement.
Countries surrounding them had kings. They clamoured for a king, too, so Samuel set out to seek the perfect king. He had been on of those regional advisors himself, called judges, and turned out to Israel's last one, being he chose the replacement for all of them in existence then. Samuel himself came from a Levitical family living on Mt. Ephraim and in Ramah in the land of Zuph; men of the tribe of Levi who were those special descendants of Aaron serving in the Temple as the Cohens or priests. His mother was a special woman, one of those who had trouble conceiving in the first place. She had consecrated him before he was born to serve G-d as a Nazirite who would serve the sanctuary at Shiloh. This was in the days before Jerusalem became the capital, sometime around 1500 BCE. Samuel served as a Judge in Ramah and worked in Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpeh. Was his judgement always infallible? Evidently not always.
The Israelites were being threatened by the Philistines and the Ammonites and a leader was needed to fight them off. Samuel saw the leadership qualities that Saul had and chose him to be the king. Saul immediately chose men already quite well trained and had himself an army. They defeated their enemies. At Michmash they had a spectacular victory stopping the Philistine danger.
Saul and the army took on punitive expeditions against the Moabites, Ammonites and Arameans.
As for the Israelite religion at that point in time, he worked on purifying it to regain its Mosaic rulings, which they were falling away from by believing in witchcraft, a prevailing belief surrounding them in other lands.
However, he and the prophet Samuel did not always see eye to eye, and friction between them grew. A young man named David had joined Saul's royal court and he was the problem. He was the youngest son of Jesse of the tribe of Judah, who was the grandson of Ruth and Boaz. He lived in Bethlehem. Boaz was a wealthy man with much property.
At age 25, David had become the armor-bearer for King Saul. He was the best friend of Saul's son, Jonathan. David showed what a great and clever soldier he was in battle and eventually wound up marrying Jonathan's sister, Michal. Saul was becoming slightly paranoid, becoming jealous of the attention that David was getting, both from his own family members and from others in the court. His jealousy became so bad that David recognized it, causing him to leave the court and join up with Achish, king of Gath, shown on the map above, a little king in Judah. He hoped this would be a cooling off period for Saul to calm down.
Besides the jealousy, Saul suffered from some ailment like seizures that was taking a toll on him physically. This had been a time when David would calm him down with his harp playing and singing. It hadn't been happening with David in Gath. David thought that Saul might be missing him more for that then being driven from him through his jealousy. Note David's hair. He was said to be a gingy (red haired).
David returned to Israel after Saul and 3 of his sons had been defeated and killed at battle over Mt. Gilboa. He settled in Hebron and then declared himself King of Judah. Saul's general was Abner, a cousin of his. Abner's father was Ner, and Ner and Kish were brothers, sons of Abiel. At first, Saul's general, Abner, sided with Eshbaal , AKA Ish-Bosheth b: 11th century BCE) Saul's 4th son who Saul had crowned king by Abner when in Mahanaim. Eshbaal was Saul's only son to fight that lived to fight in the battle of Gilboa.
With Abner now siding with David as their king, the country found itself in an indecisive war between the 2 crowned kings. General Abner continued to side with David. Eshbaal was then murdered by 2 of his own generals, Baanah and Rechab. King David had these 2 generals executed for regicide. David had become the favorite king of all time. In those days, family was important. It's surprising that Abner turned against Saul, showing that Saul did have enough problems to cause a cousin to side with an out of family king instead.
Saul's son, Jonathan, had a son named Mephibosheth. When King Saul and his sons had died in battle at Mt. Gilboa, Mephibosheth was only 5 years old. His nurse grabbed him when she heard of his father and grandfather's deaths and started to run for cover, as the custom in those days was to slaughter the remaining descendants by the new conqueror. She unfortunately dropped Mephibosheth who fell on his leg so bad that it caused him to be lame. In those days they didn't know how to set bones properly, evidently. David treated Mephibosheth well, honoring Saul and his former best friend, Jonathan in that way. Jonathan had always defended David against his father Saul's anger.
Supposedly, King Saul had a son called Jeremiah. This could be one we know of but going by another name due to changes in languages. Jeremiah was said to have a son called Afghana. Jeremiah died at the same time that King Saul died in battle with Jonathan. Afghana was raised by King David and remained in the royal court during King Solomon's reign according to the story.
To me, Jonathan and Jeremiah sound like the same person. Mephibosheth and Afghana also sound like the same people, as Mephibosheth was also raised by King David in his court. As for living through King Solomon's reign, let's look at birth dates.
David ruled from 1010 to 970 BCE His son,
Solomon ruled from 961 to 920 BCE.
Mephibosheth was 5 when Jonathan was killed. From 1010 to 961 was 49 years. Mephibosheth could have been at least 54 years old to have reached the period of Solomon's reign. So it's possible that this could have been Afghana of the legend.
About 400 years later, the Afghana family descendants had to flee to a land called Gur, which was in central Afghanistan. They lived and traded with their neighbors and by the year of 662, when Islam arrived after Mohammad had died in 632, the sons of Israel in Gur converted to Islam with 7 representatives of the Afghanis. The leader of the sons of Israel was called Kish. This was, as you remember, the name of Saul's father. This shows that they carried their history with them at least orally to have named someone Kish. Remarkably, the leadership quality of the family was carried with them as well through their DNA.
According to the oral tradition, Muhammad had rewarded this family for their converting and was given the added responsibility of spreading Islam among all the Afghanis. Kish's Hebrew name had been changed to Arab-a Rashid by Mohammad. All this is recorded by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer.
Tokayer added that he had met a tribe in the Khyber Pass area of Afghanistan with several names of the Bible's Joseph-first son of Jacob and Rachel. He knew of Yusufzai (Joseph) and Yusufuzi (children of Joseph) and Yusafzad. Their tradition is that they were carried away from their ancient homeland, wrote Tokayer.
We know that Joseph wound up in Egypt but was not part of the 10 lost tribes of Israel taken by the Assyrians in 721 BCE to become our legend of the 10 LOST TRIBES OF ISRAEL. However, his 2 sons inherited his land and were given their shares by Moses and Joshua. They were Manasseh and Ephraim. Could it be that these Afghanis were from Joseph's 2 sons? Very possible as they were from the 10 northern tribes attacked and taken by the Assyrians.
According to Wikipedia, the name, KABUL, is taken from the biblical story of Cain and Abel; the Cain is the K sound and Abul is from Abel. It also says its origin is Persian. "Kabul (Persian: کابل, translit. Kābol, Pashto: کابل, translit. Kābəl) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, located in the eastern section of the country. It is also a municipality, forming part of the greater Kabul Province. According to estimates in 2015, the population of Kabul is 4.635 million, which includes all the major ethnic groups of Afghanistan. Rapid urbanization had made Kabul the world's 75th largest city." "Afghanistan, also called Khorasan or Khurasan in medieval Muslim and Hebrew sources, has a Jewish history that may date back 2,700 years to the destruction of the and the Babylonian ."
I note that Afghanistan was on the Silk Road to China from Europe.
Jews became traders on this Silk Road connecting Jerusalem to Rome this way.
Saul was a nice village on a mountain of Afghanistan. It was located near Gardez, a town east of Ghazni in Afghanistan. In 1080, Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra mentioned that he found 40,000 Jews paying tribute to Ghazni. Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century, a well known Jewish historian, counted 80,000 Jews living there. It looks like Jews had moved there after being threatened by Islamic conversion who had been living in Arabia. They must have found refuge there even though the land itself had become Muslim. Like most Muslim states, though Jews were treated as 2nd class citizens, there were ways of staying alive, with better chances than staying in the Christian countries of that period.
I note that in 1096, 16 years later, Jews in European towns were massacred by German Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem.
1099, 19 years later, the whole Jewish community in Jerusalem was massacred by the Crusaders.
Previously, Jews of the Byzantine Empire were forcibly converted to Christianity in 640, 721 and 873, so for those 3 centuries Jews were threatened by conversions to others' Christian religion. Those dates just stand out as some of the worst experiences they had. The threat hung over them like a black cloud.
It's amazing to me now that the tables have turned. Christianity is now the more accepting religion, at least not threatening our lives, while Islam has taken the turn and some of them have turned into ISIS, killing everyone, Jews, Christians and even many Muslims not adhering to their horrible way of worshipping G-d mixed in with a lot of bloody killings.
From 1115 to 1215, there was another Jewish community in Firoz Koh that thrived which was located between Herat and Kabu. We know because stone tablet with Hebrew inscriptions dated back to then. This was told to us by Alden Oreck. I wonder if they were head stones from a grave yard.
Then something terrible happened. Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan in 1222. The Jewish communities were reduced to isolated pockets, probably those high in the mountains. Shortly after that, all Jews were expulsed from England in 1290. Was there a connection? Was it the vibes in the air we breathe? Word does get around, even without the internet.
In 1948 Israel became a state after waiting for the moment for 2,000 years. 5,000 Jews were living in Afghanistan then, and Muslims everywhere turned against their Jewish population on or after May 14th, the day it was announced in the United Nations. Most were forced to emigrate to Israel, whether they had hoped to or not. Some even opted to go to New York, USA in the early 1950s because of the change in Afghanistan's attitude towards Jews. Zabon Simintov found himself being the only Jew who remained there. Even Al Jazeera wrote about him.
Update: late Saturday night-1/5/19.
David commented: The Royal Afgan Family of Zahir Shah is descendant from Kish Family of Binyamin..
Resource: Shavei Israel site, on Afghanistan and Pashtuns; HAISTAN
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/afghanistan-virtual-jewish-history-tour
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanach, the Stone Edition
Book: THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL-THE LOST AND THE DISPERSED by Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail.
http://www.cbs.gov.il/statistical/statistical60_eng.pdf from Israel
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlLlVUdOmvA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuvEj2KmRo&fbclid=IwAR2yuAzIZ7cKPPvJ2ep2rG6qMgT8eEAfcAebTpHaGtnmlIVMe4OasXG5xCk interview of Dr. Shalva Weil
 |
| Wonders of the modern age; I just found out this is photoshopped. I thought it was an actual group of Pashtuns visiting Jerusalem some time back, maybe in the 70s. To me it's still a wonderful picture. Hope it comes true one of these days when Pashtun tourists will visit. |
There is a strong tradition, oral and written, that some of today's Pashtuns of Afghanistan came from King Saul, Israel's very first king. We find this in a book published in 1635 titled MAHSAN-I-AFGHANI. " Today, several Afghan tribes including the Durrani, Yussafzai, Afridi and Pashtun believe they are decedents of . They call themselves Bani-Israel, similar to the Hebrew, B'nai Israel, meaning the . Even some scholars and writers accept this. The exiled Afghan Royal family also traces its roots to ancient Israel, the tribe of specifically. As evidence, they cite Makhzan-i-Afghani , a chronicle published in 1635, in the time of King Jahangir by Khawaja Nimatullah of Herat.
 |
| King Saul died in battle with his son, Jonathan |
The traditional story is that it all started with Saul being chosen as king from the tribe of Benjamin. Saul was the son of Kish of the tribe of Benjamin. The prophet, Samuel, was a seer, a man of vision and highly trusted by his people who had no king over them. Instead, they relied on regional leaders to advised their people who relied on their memories of the rules handed down in their families from Moses, leader of the Israelites out of bondage of 400 years from Egypt who had lived in Canaan previously to their enslavement.
 |
| Samuel annointing David as king |
Countries surrounding them had kings. They clamoured for a king, too, so Samuel set out to seek the perfect king. He had been on of those regional advisors himself, called judges, and turned out to Israel's last one, being he chose the replacement for all of them in existence then. Samuel himself came from a Levitical family living on Mt. Ephraim and in Ramah in the land of Zuph; men of the tribe of Levi who were those special descendants of Aaron serving in the Temple as the Cohens or priests. His mother was a special woman, one of those who had trouble conceiving in the first place. She had consecrated him before he was born to serve G-d as a Nazirite who would serve the sanctuary at Shiloh. This was in the days before Jerusalem became the capital, sometime around 1500 BCE. Samuel served as a Judge in Ramah and worked in Bethel, Gilgal and Mizpeh. Was his judgement always infallible? Evidently not always.
 |
| Moabites practiced human sacrifice |
 |
| Ammonite battle |
Saul and the army took on punitive expeditions against the Moabites, Ammonites and Arameans.
As for the Israelite religion at that point in time, he worked on purifying it to regain its Mosaic rulings, which they were falling away from by believing in witchcraft, a prevailing belief surrounding them in other lands.
 |
| Young David made a name for himself taking on the Philistine giant, Goliath and outwitting him, killed him with his sling and a stone landing on his head between the eyes. |
However, he and the prophet Samuel did not always see eye to eye, and friction between them grew. A young man named David had joined Saul's royal court and he was the problem. He was the youngest son of Jesse of the tribe of Judah, who was the grandson of Ruth and Boaz. He lived in Bethlehem. Boaz was a wealthy man with much property.
At age 25, David had become the armor-bearer for King Saul. He was the best friend of Saul's son, Jonathan. David showed what a great and clever soldier he was in battle and eventually wound up marrying Jonathan's sister, Michal. Saul was becoming slightly paranoid, becoming jealous of the attention that David was getting, both from his own family members and from others in the court. His jealousy became so bad that David recognized it, causing him to leave the court and join up with Achish, king of Gath, shown on the map above, a little king in Judah. He hoped this would be a cooling off period for Saul to calm down.
Besides the jealousy, Saul suffered from some ailment like seizures that was taking a toll on him physically. This had been a time when David would calm him down with his harp playing and singing. It hadn't been happening with David in Gath. David thought that Saul might be missing him more for that then being driven from him through his jealousy. Note David's hair. He was said to be a gingy (red haired).
David returned to Israel after Saul and 3 of his sons had been defeated and killed at battle over Mt. Gilboa. He settled in Hebron and then declared himself King of Judah. Saul's general was Abner, a cousin of his. Abner's father was Ner, and Ner and Kish were brothers, sons of Abiel. At first, Saul's general, Abner, sided with Eshbaal , AKA Ish-Bosheth b: 11th century BCE) Saul's 4th son who Saul had crowned king by Abner when in Mahanaim. Eshbaal was Saul's only son to fight that lived to fight in the battle of Gilboa.
 |
| King David |
With Abner now siding with David as their king, the country found itself in an indecisive war between the 2 crowned kings. General Abner continued to side with David. Eshbaal was then murdered by 2 of his own generals, Baanah and Rechab. King David had these 2 generals executed for regicide. David had become the favorite king of all time. In those days, family was important. It's surprising that Abner turned against Saul, showing that Saul did have enough problems to cause a cousin to side with an out of family king instead.
Saul's son, Jonathan, had a son named Mephibosheth. When King Saul and his sons had died in battle at Mt. Gilboa, Mephibosheth was only 5 years old. His nurse grabbed him when she heard of his father and grandfather's deaths and started to run for cover, as the custom in those days was to slaughter the remaining descendants by the new conqueror. She unfortunately dropped Mephibosheth who fell on his leg so bad that it caused him to be lame. In those days they didn't know how to set bones properly, evidently. David treated Mephibosheth well, honoring Saul and his former best friend, Jonathan in that way. Jonathan had always defended David against his father Saul's anger.
Supposedly, King Saul had a son called Jeremiah. This could be one we know of but going by another name due to changes in languages. Jeremiah was said to have a son called Afghana. Jeremiah died at the same time that King Saul died in battle with Jonathan. Afghana was raised by King David and remained in the royal court during King Solomon's reign according to the story.
David ruled from 1010 to 970 BCE His son,
Solomon ruled from 961 to 920 BCE.
Mephibosheth was 5 when Jonathan was killed. From 1010 to 961 was 49 years. Mephibosheth could have been at least 54 years old to have reached the period of Solomon's reign. So it's possible that this could have been Afghana of the legend.
About 400 years later, the Afghana family descendants had to flee to a land called Gur, which was in central Afghanistan. They lived and traded with their neighbors and by the year of 662, when Islam arrived after Mohammad had died in 632, the sons of Israel in Gur converted to Islam with 7 representatives of the Afghanis. The leader of the sons of Israel was called Kish. This was, as you remember, the name of Saul's father. This shows that they carried their history with them at least orally to have named someone Kish. Remarkably, the leadership quality of the family was carried with them as well through their DNA.
According to the oral tradition, Muhammad had rewarded this family for their converting and was given the added responsibility of spreading Islam among all the Afghanis. Kish's Hebrew name had been changed to Arab-a Rashid by Mohammad. All this is recorded by Rabbi Marvin Tokayer.
Tokayer added that he had met a tribe in the Khyber Pass area of Afghanistan with several names of the Bible's Joseph-first son of Jacob and Rachel. He knew of Yusufzai (Joseph) and Yusufuzi (children of Joseph) and Yusafzad. Their tradition is that they were carried away from their ancient homeland, wrote Tokayer.
According to Wikipedia, the name, KABUL, is taken from the biblical story of Cain and Abel; the Cain is the K sound and Abul is from Abel. It also says its origin is Persian. "Kabul (Persian: کابل, translit. Kābol, Pashto: کابل, translit. Kābəl) is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan, located in the eastern section of the country. It is also a municipality, forming part of the greater Kabul Province. According to estimates in 2015, the population of Kabul is 4.635 million, which includes all the major ethnic groups of Afghanistan. Rapid urbanization had made Kabul the world's 75th largest city." "Afghanistan, also called Khorasan or Khurasan in medieval Muslim and Hebrew sources, has a Jewish history that may date back 2,700 years to the destruction of the and the Babylonian ."
I note that Afghanistan was on the Silk Road to China from Europe.
Jews became traders on this Silk Road connecting Jerusalem to Rome this way.
Saul was a nice village on a mountain of Afghanistan. It was located near Gardez, a town east of Ghazni in Afghanistan. In 1080, Rabbi Moses ibn Ezra mentioned that he found 40,000 Jews paying tribute to Ghazni. Benjamin of Tudela in the 12th century, a well known Jewish historian, counted 80,000 Jews living there. It looks like Jews had moved there after being threatened by Islamic conversion who had been living in Arabia. They must have found refuge there even though the land itself had become Muslim. Like most Muslim states, though Jews were treated as 2nd class citizens, there were ways of staying alive, with better chances than staying in the Christian countries of that period.
I note that in 1096, 16 years later, Jews in European towns were massacred by German Crusaders on their way to Jerusalem.
1099, 19 years later, the whole Jewish community in Jerusalem was massacred by the Crusaders.
Previously, Jews of the Byzantine Empire were forcibly converted to Christianity in 640, 721 and 873, so for those 3 centuries Jews were threatened by conversions to others' Christian religion. Those dates just stand out as some of the worst experiences they had. The threat hung over them like a black cloud.
It's amazing to me now that the tables have turned. Christianity is now the more accepting religion, at least not threatening our lives, while Islam has taken the turn and some of them have turned into ISIS, killing everyone, Jews, Christians and even many Muslims not adhering to their horrible way of worshipping G-d mixed in with a lot of bloody killings.
From 1115 to 1215, there was another Jewish community in Firoz Koh that thrived which was located between Herat and Kabu. We know because stone tablet with Hebrew inscriptions dated back to then. This was told to us by Alden Oreck. I wonder if they were head stones from a grave yard.
Then something terrible happened. Genghis Khan invaded Afghanistan in 1222. The Jewish communities were reduced to isolated pockets, probably those high in the mountains. Shortly after that, all Jews were expulsed from England in 1290. Was there a connection? Was it the vibes in the air we breathe? Word does get around, even without the internet.
 |
| Pashtuns living in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India families remembering their history of coming from Saul and Benjamin, tribes taken by Assyrians long ago, still practicing some long ago customs such as candles on Friday nights. There were about 9 million Pathans living in Afghganistan. When Jews lived here, they unfortunately were not at the point of mixing with the Pashtuns or curious about this shared history as we are today. I suppose as the saying goes, there is a time and place for everything to happen. |
In 1948 Israel became a state after waiting for the moment for 2,000 years. 5,000 Jews were living in Afghanistan then, and Muslims everywhere turned against their Jewish population on or after May 14th, the day it was announced in the United Nations. Most were forced to emigrate to Israel, whether they had hoped to or not. Some even opted to go to New York, USA in the early 1950s because of the change in Afghanistan's attitude towards Jews. Zabon Simintov found himself being the only Jew who remained there. Even Al Jazeera wrote about him.
Update: late Saturday night-1/5/19.
David commented: The Royal Afgan Family of Zahir Shah is descendant from Kish Family of Binyamin..
Resource: Shavei Israel site, on Afghanistan and Pashtuns; HAISTAN
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/afghanistan-virtual-jewish-history-tour
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Tanach, the Stone Edition
Book: THE TRIBES OF ISRAEL-THE LOST AND THE DISPERSED by Rabbi Eliyahu Avichail.
http://www.cbs.gov.il/statistical/statistical60_eng.pdf from Israel
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/17/israel-lost-tribes-pashtun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlLlVUdOmvA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPuvEj2KmRo&fbclid=IwAR2yuAzIZ7cKPPvJ2ep2rG6qMgT8eEAfcAebTpHaGtnmlIVMe4OasXG5xCk interview of Dr. Shalva Weil
