Israel Speaks
There are several voluntary aid organizations in Israel.
"Zaka" organization is one of them and it is unique also worldwide.
It deals with catastrophe victims and victims of violent deaths.
Yehuda Meshi Zahav is among the organization's founders and has been
its leader ever since the beginning.
About 20 years ago, on the 6th of July 1989, a terrorist blew up a bus
on the road between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and 17 people died.
I went there with a small group from Jerusalem to help, but we also
messed up things, because we didn't know anything about rescue activity.
We came back home shocked. It was the first suicide attack in Israel.
In the 90's I went with the same group to help in terror attack scenes.
When we decided that there is no difference between terror victims and
any other unnatural death, we estab- lished the organization to help both.
In the beginning the task of the members of Zaka was first to gather
the body parts and bury them.
Today we know that it's more about honoring the living than the dead.
The relatives cannot be in peace before they have buried
their loved ones. It is related to people's subconscious.
The family will not be in peace be- fore they can bury their loved ones.
Today we also protect the honor of the living, not only of the dead.
Sometimes our activities are very absurd. When we are taking care of the
bodies of the victims, we also have to take care of the murderer's body.
The Torah talks about burying for the first time in an event
where someone was sentenced to death and hanged.
We can say that every person was created in the image of God.
It is, therefore, disrespectful to God if a person who was created
in His image, is left hanging on a tree.
Man was created in the image of God and there is no difference
between Jew and non-Jew, religious or secular.
All people, including the murderer, deserve to be buried with honor.
Zaka is not a religious, but a humanitarian organization.
The religious are usually those people who can do this work.
Many times a group of volunteers enters a house where there is
a dead body inside, and it is difficult.
In recent years the organization has expanded and taken charge of
rescue activities as well. For this purpose they have established
a motorcycle unit which moves fast to the scene.
Currently the unit has 60 motor- cyclists from all over the country.
I am 40 years old, married and a father of 3 girls.
I am the leader of Zaka operations.
I am in charge of all the activities of Zaka on the field.
All rescue activities and operations go through me.
Zaka handles all kinds of cases of unnatural deaths.
There are about 35 cases like this per week. Those include car crashes, -
suicides, rottening bodies and daily life rescue operations.
We arrive at the scene under the protection of the Israeli Police.
We are a unit in the Police.
We do a lot of cooperation. Yesterday we had a large exercise
in Haifa where 500 people got wounded and dozens killed.
We practised cooperation with the army and the police staff.
We are a part of the Israeli security forces.
There are 1500 ready-for-action and 3000 emergency volunteers
enrolled at Zaka.
I became a Zaka volunteer over 10 years ago when I was young.
I was in a yeshiva in Bat Yam.
As I was walking on the street once I saw a serious accident scene.
This was the first serious incident I encountered and I didn't know
how to give first aid. We waited for the ambulance and I saw how
the victim bled to death.
I understood that had I known how to stop the bleeding, I could have
saved this person's life. So, I decided to study first-aid.
How I came to Zaka.
I happened upon a murder scene which I cannot forget.
Someone had shot his father and mother. I was closeby and I saw
that Zaka didn't have enough volunteers to clean the blood.
I decided to do something in this field.
I am 22 years old. I came to Zaka by accident.
I started volunteering in the ambulance service.
I noticed that driving is very diffi- cult in Jerusalem and in other cities
and I contacted Zaka who had a motorcycle unit.
I have been in Zaka for almost 4 years. I received a motorcycle
which I use privately every day. Every second work meeting
is interrupted by an alarm. People are very patient.
So far I have been on thousands of accident scenes, -
bomb blasts and car accidents.
In some accidents I had to work alone before help came.
Last Saturday I managed to resuscitate a 70-year-old woman.
At the age of 16 I decided to volunteer in the ambulance service.
I always saw what Zaka did on the field.
I saw bomb attacks and the dead and I always wanted to help.
Then they established the motor- cycle unit and I was there from
the beginning.
Until a few years ago I used to work for different employers.
Usually they understood that this is about rescuing lives.
They have known how to appreciate it, and I leave and come back to work.
Today I'm doing more entrepreneurial work, so I can allow this to myself.
God pays me my salary.
I have been involved in this already for 9 years. Sometimes neighbours
come to my home when their child has a wound or hit his head.
So far I have dealt with over 8000 incidents and 2500 bodies.
The purpose of the motorcycle unit is to arrive fast at the scene
to give first-aid which is then continued in the hospital.
If it turns into a tragedy our job is to gather the blood and body parts
and bring them for burial.
After this we clean the accident scene.
It's good that the relatives won't see the worst.
Upon arriving at the accident scene it is good to report of the incident.
I park the motorcycle in a place where it can be seen.
I turn on the emergency lights.
At the scene you have to find out whether it is a normal incident
or a criminal one.
You report of the situation to the center and then begin the first-aid.
If there are many wounded, you request additional forces.
Sometimes you have to cancel the extra forces, if they are not needed
so that the volunteers can continue their normal life.
Israelis are already used to reac- ting to motorcycles and ambulances
hysterically, because it reminds them of terror attacks.
There is also a lot of crime in Israel.
The less we produce siren sounds, the better for the people.
Zaka's workers have to face extremely difficult situations
which are almost unbearable.
Facing death is a difficult experience for people in every age.
Every story is different and hard.
There is a family behind each child.
I was in the tsunami area and I saw tens of thousands of bodies.
A group from Israel was sent which included 6 volunteers from Zaka
and another few from Mazap.
There were 300 000 death victims.
8 Israelis were missing, and we brought them all home.
I believe we were guided from above.
We saw terrible things there. Hundreds of thousands of people
had been killed in a matter of a few seconds.
There is no doubt that to face tha deaths of children or the recent
incident in Rishon Letzion where we had to see murdered
family members from 3 generations, -
is very difficult for the Zaka volunteers.
We get training and treatment in these things and continue working.
Once I was driving at the Ben Gurion crossing
when I was passed by a car driving at the speed of about 200 km/h.
The car began spinning and turned on the road separation sign.
All this happened before my eyes.
The car hit the pillar, split into two and 4 people died.
Usually when I come to an accident scene I already know what is waiting.
In this case I saw the accident, called the amublance and told them
I would go and check the situation.
I began trying to resuscitate the victims and afterwards
treat the bodies with honor.
The victims were 4 young men who were coming back from a night-out.
The driver was apparently drunk.
They died very fast when the car split into two.
The accident was very hard for me because I witnessed it.
Had I come to the scene only after the accident, maybe it would still
have been difficult but I would have related to it normally.
Now I had to see everything and go home the same night.
My wife tells me that even today I still sometimes talk about
the accident in my sleep.
This is my problem. It's hard, but I have to continue.
In November 2008 Al-Qaeda terrorists attacked 10 different targets
in Mumbai, India.
173 people died in the attacks.
One of the targets was the working center of the Jewish Chabad movement
whose 6 employees were taken hostage and later on killed.
I heard in the news that there were Jews who were kidnapped
and killed.
We started thinking how we could help.
At that point there were still hostages alive, -
who could have been saved.
In these situations you think like a robot, what to do.
We had to get a private plane to Turkey and another plane from there.
Moreover, we needed permits in obtaining which we received help
from the Chabad organization, which was the target of the attack.
We were the only group who was sent there. When we arrived there
the situation was very unclear. They spoke of 50 terrorists
and they didn't know who was firing at whom.
The local security forces feared that the Jewish volunteers could be
kidnapped, so they were asked to hide their identities.
We stood about 230 m from the scene and it looked like a movie.
Helicopters arrived and commando forces entered the building.
Adrenaline started flowing and we already wanted to go and help.
All the time we were thinking of how we could save the people.
We got inside the Chabad house and it was dark there.
We began seeing what had happened. We also saw hand grenades, -
which had not exploded. We could have died at any moment.
We checked the building and pulled back.
All the victims had died and they were taken out.
We went to the cold store of the morgue where the bodies were.
I saw all kinds of bodies. The victims were hobbled.
It looked like the terrorists had tied them with some cables.
In my head I was thinking, how they had time to do all of this.
The proportions were also huge: there were 200 bodies
each one with different wounds.
It's hard to handle these things.
On Monday we received permission to gather all the rest that needed
to be buried.
We had time until four o'clock to do the work.
We were under pressure, because we were surrounded by soldiers
and curious Indians. The building was also about to collapse
and we had to be careful that the walls would not come down.
I saw that my volunteers were all burned out.
I couldn't make them work. They had been there for many days
almost without food and sleep and under tremendous mental pressure.
I took them to a room where the rabbi had been killed. We sat in a circle
on boxes and I opened a Torah scroll which was torn by a bullet.
We started singing emotional songs and everyone started crying.
We sang for about half an hour. If someone had seen us, he could not
have understood what had happened. People were sitting in a place filled
with blood, just sitting, singing and crying.
This is how they got more mental strength and we could finish our task.
One of the victims happened to be a friend of mine.
He studied with me in the yeshiva and he died in the attack.
I wrapped him in a sack. Only when I got back to Israel
did I start thinking about what had happened.
This terror attack in India remains strongly in my mind.
Volunteers need a special character in order for them to stand the
situations they face.
Those who want to volunteer in Zaka are sent to a graveyard
to observe normal burial practises and how the dead are being treated
and the bodies prepared for burial.
If we see that the person can cope with it, -
we send him to courses organized by us and the police
where they will see how hard this work really is.
A volunteer is a person who has strength and patience
and can witness difficult events and cope with them.
We had volunteers who left after a short time, -
because they couldn't cope with this.
The tasks are difficult; we need to treat the wounded and dead bodies
and be in places where there are terrorists, -
for example, in terror attack scenes.
Some volunteers have gone crazy after being in these situations.
It's very hard. Only the strong will stay.
No one is forced to stay here.
People are sent to accident scenes according to their own abilities.
Usually the new volunteers help the experienced volunteers
and gradually they get used to it.
When I arrive at a scene I start working without thinking.
Only afterwards can you think.
After work you need to relax and enjoy being with friends.
If you stay alone, you start thinking about the accidents.
Zaka also has a peer support group which includes a psychologist.
If we see that the volunteers have problems we try to reduce their
work load and send more experienced people to the operations.
In the beginning I didn't go to every suicide scene, but helped
in more simple accidents.
I had some experience on working in a ambulance.
Still you never get used to these things.
The heart changes to a kind of a heart of stone.
According to a British survey, 13 per cent of Israelis suffer from
post-traumatic disorders.
Only 3 per cent of Zaka volunteers suffer from it.
I'm afraid that the volunteers will be permanently damaged.
I remember that in the beginning we took as volunteers only those
who were married, because we assumed they would be more mature.
The wifes started calling us and saying they would not let their
husbands continue the work.
We took a psychologist in our team. In the beginning no one contacted him.
It turned out that no one wanted to look weak.
Then we started organizing group mee- tings with 20 participants at a time.
It succeeded.
Today we have a list of activities with which we protect the volunteers.
Today the Zaka organization is active around the world and arouses great
international interest.
It is written that the Law will come forth from Zion.
We have certain ethics. We take care of everyone irrespective of
race, sex or religion.
We have to start respecting each other.
Through this moral strength new doors are opening all over the world.
For example, embassies have asked us to help them.
For example, the President of Germany who visited Israel wanted to meet us.
He said he would himself want to volunteer.
We held a ceremony with him and gave him a certificate.
I have used his unit already a few times.
We were in the 9/11 memorial service. Two organizations were invited
to the event: The New York firefighters and Zaka.
It was an interesting sight when we sat there on the stage:
the New York Police chief, the New York fire fighter chief and me.
Zaka's Bedouin department head, a sheikh, was also with me.
There was also a secular volunteer, one diver, a Druze volunteer
and a Cherkess volunteer.
The situation was unreal, but this is the situation we live in.
I and the Bedouin sheikh walked around both wearing our own clothing.
We were together all the time and people asked if we were actors.
Zaka aims to expand its activities and calls for volunteers from all the
countries of the world.
Anyone can go to Zaka's website and apply to become a volunteer.
We will find out in which field he works and will direct him to
a suitable volunteer task.
Many professionals from different fields come to us.
Tomorrow we might need a doctor or an engineer.
Everyone does not have to deal with the hard tasks.
There are other tasks. The same way that there is the non-Jewish
Red Cross organization, we would want to have a Jewish organization
which helps everyone irrespective of religion, race or sex.
We want to show that we are helping everyone.
Translation: Sonja Mattayev