ZAKA

Zaka01.png

ZAKA זק"א - איתור חילוץ והצלה - חסד של אמת is an abbreviation for: "Identifying Victims of Disaster" (in Hebrew: Zihuy Korbanot Asson). It is a community emergency response team in the State of Israel, officially recognized by the government. The organization was founded in 1989 by Yehuda Meshi Zahav and Rabbi Moshe Aizenbach.

Contents

Functions

ZAKA members, most of whom are Orthodox Jews, assist ambulance crews, identify the victims of terrorism, and when necessary gather body parts and spilled blood for burial. They also voluntarily provide first aid and rescue services and help in search for missing people.

History

ZAKA started when a group of volunteers got together to assist in recovery of human remains from a terrorist attack on a Line 405 bus in 1989. In 1995 they were officially recognized by the Israeli government and work closely with the Israeli police, identifying disaster victims.

Hessed shel Emet

The founders and members, however, prefer to call the organization and their work Hessed shel Emet ("true kindness") because of their dedicated work to bring bodies of slain Jews to be buried according to Halakha (Jewish Torah law). The phrase Hessed shel Emet applies to doing "kindness" for the benefit of the deceased, which is considered to be "true kindness", since a reward is not expected.

Public positive

ZAKA has gained positive public opinion because of its devoted conduct in treating the bodies of the victims killed by terrorist suicide bombings, and their great contributation to Israeli society.

ZAKA's founder, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, was given the honor of lighting an honorary beacon on Israel's 55th Independence Day official ceremonies on Mount Herzl in Jerusalem, the revered burial spot of modern Zionism's founder Theodor Herzl.

Demonstrating

Recently, a group of ZAKA volunteers flew to The Hague, Holland, with a skeleton of the burnt bus destroyed on January 29th, 2004 in a Jerusalem suicide bombing. The skeleton of the burnt bus, along with picture of 950 victims of Palestinian terrorism., were flawn to Washington DC to urge the US to act against Palestinian terrorism [1] (http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/040506/ids_photos_ts/r2007434042.jpg).

Links

External links

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia article. Browse Wikipedia for more information.