A Bedouin man in his ZAKA volunteer garb (Picture courtesy of ZAKA)
In 1995 werd in Israel de religieuze humanitaire organisatie ZAKA opgericht. Deze mensen zijn als een van de eersten ter plekke na een zelfmoordaanslag en ruimen de menselijke resten op en identificeren de slachtoffers. Zij houden daarbij rekening met de specifieke religieuze regels wat betreft bloed en dergelijke. De laatste jaren biedt ZAKA haar expertise en hulp aan bij rampen over de hele wereld, zelfs in landen waarmee Israel geen diplomatieke betrekkingen heeft.
ZAKA sent teams to assist at the sites of the World Trade Center and Mumbai terrorist attacks; the Columbia space shuttle tragedy in Texas; synagogue bombings in Istanbul; the tsunami in Southeast Asia; plane crashes in Phuket, Thailand, Mexico, and Namibia; the devastating earthquake in Haiti; and the recent murder of a Jewish traveler in the Ukraine, among other tragedies.
Overseas missions became easier to arrange after the United Nations officially recognized ZAKA as an international humanitarian volunteer organization in 2005. This status gives the organization entrée to any country, even those with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations.
ZAKA heeft sinds kort speciale afdelingen voor Druze en Arabieren in Israel, waarvoor mensen uit die gemeenschappen worden opgeleid.
Israel's unique voluntary rescue organization, ZAKA, is adding four new units to better serve Arab, Bedouin, Circassian and Druze populations in the country's north and south. Volunteers from those minority communities will staff the units after receiving training at ZAKA, which is a Hebrew acronym for Disaster Victim Identification.
Israel had no organized system for dealing with victims' body parts and blood, considered sacred by Jewish law, until Jerusalemite Yehuda Meshi-Zahav (51) founded ZAKA in 1995. The non-Jewish volunteers will be trained to carry out these tasks according to their own religious and ethnic customs.
Small ZAKA units are already active among the Bedouin population in the south and the Druze communities of the north. However, the four new branches herald the beginning of direct government participation in ZAKA expansion. Galil Ayoob Kara, a Druze member of Israel's parliament and Deputy Minister for the Development of the Negev and Galilee, has termed the government's cooperation with ZAKA "holy work" and a critical step toward equality for all Israeli citizens.
Training is taking place under the guidance of Gadi Kellerman in the south and Hezki Farkash in the north. Kellerman says the 15 volunteers he has recruited are mostly from border patrol and police squads.
Images replayed like a horror movie
Meshi-Zahav has long been aware of ZAKA's potential to break barriers and build bridges between Israeli Jews and minorities. "We are open to all: Religious and not, Jews and non-Jews, Israelis and Arabs," he says. "Our guiding principle is our belief that man was made in the image of God."
ZAKA has always handled bodies of non-Jewish victims – even terrorists – with sensitivity to cultural and religious principles, he stresses. However, he is enthusiastic about recruiting members from other faiths.
"We believe everyone wants to do good work," he says. "Adding as many people as possible to our volunteering circle is a means to perfecting our world."
Meshi-Zahav, an ultra-Orthodox Jew and father of seven, witnessed the first bus bombing just outside Jerusalem in 1989. He and some fellow yeshiva students ran to help out at the gruesome scene, but had no expertise in forensics or first aid.
"I went home and the images kept replaying in my mind like a horror movie," he recalls. Over the course of the next six years, he built up a basis for what would become the world's only Jewish organization authorized by the Israel Police to handle recovery and body part identification.
Officially recognized by the UN
Over the years, the organization added specialty canine, diving, and rappelling units, and now participates in search-and-rescue missions, firefighting, international disaster relief, and accident prevention programs. Some of ZAKA's 1,500 volunteers have worked alongside law enforcement and emergency personnel following terrorist attacks, accidents, and natural disasters across the globe.
ZAKA sent teams to assist at the sites of the World Trade Center and Mumbai terrorist attacks; the Columbia space shuttle tragedy in Texas; synagogue bombings in Istanbul; the tsunami in Southeast Asia; plane crashes in Phuket, Thailand, Mexico, and Namibia; the devastating earthquake in Haiti; and the recent murder of a Jewish traveler in the Ukraine, among other tragedies.
Overseas missions became easier to arrange after the United Nations officially recognized ZAKA as an international humanitarian volunteer organization in 2005. This status gives the organization entrée to any country, even those with which Israel does not have diplomatic relations.
"The humanitarian message of ZAKA is the key that opens doors to all communities," says ZAKA spokeswoman Lydia Weitzman.
ZAKA recently established International Rescue branches in Mexico, France, and Hong Kong, with another planned for Kiev to serve the entire Eastern European region. At the new branches, community volunteers will be trained to offer an immediate professional response to disaster in their regions, before Israel-based ZAKA volunteers can arrive on the scene.
