Jewish communities across the US helped resettle 1,900 Afghan refugees in past year

On the first anniversary of the end of the chaotic US pullout from Afghanistan as Taliban regained power, evacuees and Jewish volunteers reflect on the struggles of starting over

On September 1, 2021, Hadiya (last name withheld for security reasons) fled her home in Kabul with her parents Mirwais and Zarmina, and her older sister Marwa. All they took with them were their cell phones, a laptop computer, and the clothes on their backs.

Hadiya, 22, and her family escaped the Taliban takeover and the chaotic United States military withdrawal from Afghanistan following a 20-year war. Tuesday marks the first anniversary of the end of the pullout resulting in the evacuation of tens of thousands of US-affiliated and at-risk Afghans.

“We had to get out. My father had been a journalist in the past with Radio Azadi [formerly Radio Free Afghanistan] and was at the time working for the Afghan army. And my sister had a high profile position in the Afghan interior ministry,” Hadiya said.

Rather than heading to the mobbed Kabul airport, Hadiya and her family laid low at home until an American advisor told them to drive to another province seven hours away. They stayed there 20 days until the Taliban agreed to terms for their exit. The US military flew the family to a base in Qatar. They were there for a month before being transferred to a military base in Virginia, where they lived with other evacuees for more than two months.

In an interview with The Times of Israel from her new home in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Hadiya said that her family would have been in “a bad situation,” had they not been helped by volunteers from the Harrisburg Jewish community.

FULL STORY How Jewish communities across the US helped resettle 1,900 Afghan evacuees this year (Times of Israel)

Photo: Afghan evacuee Hadiya and her father Mirwais after being resettled in 2021 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (Courtesy)