An Afghan translator for the Royal Air Force has been rescued from the Taliban with his family in an operation led by an Israeli civilian and funded by a Brooklyn rabbi, the JC can reveal.
The evacuation took place in utmost secrecy after the Islamist militant group had taken power in Kabul.
The RAF asked Israeli businessman and humanitarian Moti Kahana for help, as his organisation Global Development Corporation (GDC) is currently working with an Afghan network to bring refugees out of the country every day, including the Afghanistan women’s football team. Mr Kahana has also evacuated Jews and non-Jews from Syria.
The operation was funded by Brooklyn-based Rabbi Moshe Margaretten.
The interpreter had been commended by senior British officers for his exemplary record over many years, starting in 2003.
His extensive service for Britain’s armed forces — including special forces — as well as for high-level diplomatic personnel had made him a prime target. Taliban gunmen had come searching for him at his home before he was able to escape.
He had been warned that the lives of his family were under threat from reprisals by the Islamist regime which seized power last month.
They feared that they were trapped after British and American forces pulled out of the country, leaving any remaining Afghans who had worked for them in deadly peril.
But thanks to the rescue carried out by Mr Kahana’s network, the translator is now safe in an unnamed neighbouring country along with his wife, two sons and a daughter, father and brother.
Their hope is eventually to come to Britain to make a new life and continue the education of the children.
Mr Kahana organised the evacuation from outside Afghanistan while deploying an Afghan team on the ground. He said it had been “very dangerous” to extract the interpreter and his family. “The Taliban were looking for this guy and went to his home,” he said. “It took about a day to rescue the family and I used one of the best men on my team.”
Speaking to the JC, the rescued Afghan translator — whose name is being withheld for security reasons — said he would be “proud to meet” Mr Kahana, who had “played a key role” in bringing his family out. Saying he was “feeling pretty safe” now, he recalled how his children, aged nine, six and four, had become “very scared” after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last month.
He said: “They were deprived of their education, and we [the adults] lost employment. We were depressed and terrified. We had lost hope. I really love my country, I am passionate about education and cultural exchange, but we were stranded from August 14th and 15th onward. Finally we were evacuated and we made it.”
Describing the perilous escape, he said leaving Kabul was “really challenging” because they had to go through a repeated number of Taliban-controlled checkpoints on their way to the border.
He said he was now looking forward to resettling his family in Britain “where my children can enjoy school and we can rebuild our lives”.
The mission was paid for by Tzedek, a charity based in Brooklyn founded by Rabbi Margaretten, a member of the Skverer Chasidic sect.
Mr Kahana told the JC that he is currently bringing out around 200 people a day, usually directing operations from his home now in America but occasionally, where necessary, flying to one of the neighbouring countries. All his team are local Afghans with whom he has worked for several years, including rescue operations from war-torn Syria.
It is understood that Mr Kahana and Tzedek were approached by the UK to help with the extraction of a number of former British government employees because of their success in previous operations.
Among those already evacuated with the help of Mr Kahana’s organisation Global Development Corporation (GDC) and Rabbi Margaretten’s Tzedek funding are the Afghan women’s soccer team — now understood to be in Australia — and four children, hiding in a Kabul apartment, whose father was murdered by the Taliban and whose mother was desperate to bring them to America. They also rescued the last Jew in Afghanistan, Zebulon Simentov.
Brooklyn rabbi who funded rescue
Rabbi Moshe Margaretten, 40, is an unlikely hero for the Afghan refugees he has helped rescue.
The grandson of Holocaust survivors, the Brooklyn-based rabbi has wide contacts within the Chasidic community and through his Tzedek operation has raised thousands of dollars to pay for the rescue missions.
As well as providing funding, the rabbi has spent time in helping organise the paperwork to process the departure of many of those who have left Afghanistan.
He says that in his rescue work he has followed the teaching of the revered Lubavitcher Rebbe, who spoke about how Maimonides would help anyone in need. Rabbi Margaretten told a Chabad outlet: “You don’t need to be Jewish. The Torah teaches that ‘One who has mercy on God’s creations will merit Divine mercy.’ When these lives were in danger, I felt that Jews should be the first to save them.”
He first began the work in order to bring out the last Jew in Afghanistan, Zebulon Simentov, but has now committed to rescue whomever he can.
