Pakistan hosted small, yet thriving, Jewish communities from the 19th century until the end of the 1960s. When India and Pakistan were one country, before the partition in 1947, the Jews were treated with tolerance and equality.

In the first half of the 20th century, there were nearly 1,000 Jewish residents in Pakistan living in different cities: Karachi, Peshwar, Quetta and Lahore.

The largest Jewish community lived in Karachi, where there was a large synagogue and a smaller prayer hall. There were two synagogues in Peshawar, one small prayer hall in Lahore belonging to the Afghan Jewish community, and one prayer hall in Quetta.

The Jews of Pakistan mostly came from the B’nei Israel community of India, in the employ of the British. A 1941 government census recorded 1,199 Pakistani Jews: 513 men and 538 women.

Many of the Karachi Jews left the city in 1948, after rioters attacked the Karachi synagogue. Most of the remaining Jews emigrated and, in 1968, there were only 350 left, but only in Karachi. T

he Magen Shalom synagogue, the last remaining one in Karachi was destroyed on 1988, to make way for a shopping centre, by order of Pakistan’s President.