Jews have lived in Afghanistan since the first millennium; at the beginning of the 20th century, the country was home to a Jewish population of about 40,000 souls. Now only one Jew is left, but anti-Semitic graffiti, theories, and sentiments remain widespread. Many of these come to the fore the celebration of Quds Day—an anti-Israel holiday created by the Islamic Republic in 1979. In Kabul, the annual Quds Day rally is sponsored by a Shiite cleric named Sayed Hussain Mazari, as Ezzatullah Mehrdad writes:
Few religious centers in Afghanistan are self-financed or locally funded. As in other Middle Eastern countries such as Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, Bahrain, and Pakistan, many of the Shiite scholars in Afghanistan are bankrolled by Iran. Asif Yousufi, a social activist who [this year] attended a student-led demonstration against the celebration of Quds Day, claims that Mazari is among them, though he believes the latter will not publicly acknowledge this.
The Islamic Republic of Iran . . . also maintains an intelligence presence in Afghanistan and supports groups here that serve its national interests. Some experts believe Iran might be behind the spread of anti-Semitism within its neighbor to the east as part of an effort to build a united front against the Jewish state.
But there are undoubtedly other sources as well:
[The anti-Semitism researcher Guenther] Jikeli says Jew-hatred in Afghanistan may also be a residual effect of propaganda efforts by Nazi Germany during World War II, which included radio programs the regime broadcast to Arabic-speaking countries demonizing Jews, [some of which reached non-Arab Afghanistan]. Nearly 80 years after the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler still enjoys widespread popularity in the country, and his image is sometimes used in advertisements—including for a public-speaking course that touts him as a model orator. A common Afghan expression says that Hitler left some Jews alive to remind the world just how noxious they are.
In private conversation, Afghan religious hardliners compare terrorists with Jews, [but conclude] that “even” Jewish people are better than terrorists. In political spheres, non-Pashtun ethnic groups hypothesize that the Pashtun, Afghanistan’s largest ethnicity, were originally Jews.
Read more on Times of Israel: https://www.timesofisrael.com/kabul-with-jewish-population-of-1-still-suffers-from-widespread-anti-semitism/