JTA — Zebulon Simantov, Afghanistan’s last Jew, has not left Kabul, despite the best efforts of some Jewish figures and organizations.
One of them was Moshe Margaretten, a US ultra-Orthodox fixer whose passion is bringing Jews out of danger.
Margaretten paid Moti Kahana, an Israeli-American businessman who helped extract people from war-torn Syria, to be a middleman and get Simantov out — but Kahana told Margaretten what many others had heard: Simantov was not leaving because of his long-standing refusal to grant his Israeli wife a “get,” or decree of divorce. Simantov feared facing Israel’s legal system, which penalizes such a refusal.
But Kahana hatched another idea. The team that he sent into Kabul to extract Simantov learned that there were plenty of women in danger of being targeted by the Taliban as they assumed total control of Afghanistan — among…
