How chassidic activist Moshe Margareten saved desperate Afghans from the Taliban

Photos: Jeff Zarabedian, AP Images

The rendezvous at the Albany airport was an unlikely meeting of worlds. As the last US forces lifted off from Kabul last month, four Afghan children were reunited with the mother they had last seen three years before, and were then introduced to their savior — a chassidishe man from Williamsburg. It was their first time seeing a Jew, and the family was overwhelmed with gratitude.

Even for someone like Moshe Margareten, who’s grown used to dramatic reunions ever since a prison reform effort he spearheaded became law three years ago, the scene last month was moving.

“The mother got very emotional,” says Margareten, who founded the Tzedek Association, which focuses on inmate services. “She told me, ‘The kindness that you showed me is the reason my late husband chose to work with the United States.’ ”

Afghanistan’s fall to the Taliban triggered a rush to rescue the myriad individuals and groups whom the radical group deem a threat to their version of pure Islamic governance, or who collaborated with the departed Coalition troops. Margareten has become one of these saviors, an unlikely label for someone who regularly travels to his rebbe in New Square.

“Happy to report that we were blessed to help 61 men, women, and children evacuate from Afghanistan yesterday!” he tweeted, referring to a women’s soccer team, a judge, and several prosecutors.

But the story of the unlikely Albany reunion facilitated by a youthful-looking chassidic Jew is only one part of a wider picture. Look deeper, and it pulls back the screen on a tale of covert rescue that has largely stayed off the media’s radar.

Call it the new underground railroad. With vast numbers of American and British soldiers and spies personally invested in rescuing the Afghans they worked alongside, alternative routes have sprung up to replace the air route that is now closed.

The modus operandi is in constant flux, but the elements look clear: safe houses operated by former Afghan special forces allied with the nascent resistance movement; contacts with local Taliban leaders who have been bribed to allow safe passage; and frantic efforts to secure entry to countries such as Tajikistan.

The last exhausting weeks of playing cat and mouse with the Taliban are just the latest evolution in Moshe Margareten’s years-long effort to help those behind bars — both from his community and beyond. But underlying the universal reach of his mission, he says, is a very Jewish instinct.

“People call you and cry, and we are Jews who have rachmanus. It’s very hard, because we can’t help everyone.”