Pakistan, which once boasted a small but active Jewish community, is now home to at most a handful of Jews, who generally conceal their identities due to widespread anti-Semitism. Faisal Benkhald, who prefers to go by his Jewish first name of Fishel, has dedicated himself to preserving and restoring the country’s Jewish cemeteries, most of which have fallen into disrepair. About one in Karachi, Erica Lyons writes:
[Benkhald] is outspoken and relentless in his efforts to make the story of this cemetery known and fears that it could potentially be entirely destroyed. In a place where a historic synagogue was razed and the community now nearly entirely forgotten, this is perhaps not an unfounded fear. So what would drive one to protect neglected Jewish graves? Fishel’s own family story is largely responsible for this. He was born in Karachi to an Arab father and a Jewish mother in 1987. Though there is no way to verify it, he says that he was told as a child by an elderly Jewish gentleman that he knew only as Mr. David that there were 200 Jews living in Pakistan at the time. He speaks of having a fascination with the [Karachi] cemetery since his teens and is perhaps clinging onto what little is left.
Read more on Asian Jewish Life: http://asianjewishlife.org/images/issues/Issue15-October2014/PDFs/AJL-Issue15-Saving-Jewish-Graves.pdf