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You have probably seen them on TV. They are the first to
arrive at the scene of a terror attack or a civil disaster, and the last to
leave. They are conspicuous not only by their bright yellow safety vests and
hard hats, but by their white fringed prayer shawls and dangling sidelocks. They
are the Israeli volunteers of Ezer Mitzion (“Zion’s Aid”) and Hessed
Shel Emet (“True Mercy.”) Last Friday night (June 1), when religious
Jews in Israel were sitting down to their Sabbath meal, ambulances raced through
the quiet streets of Bnei Brak, an Orthodox suburb of Tel Aviv, lights flashing
and sirens wailing, to take the volunteer paramedics to the site of the terror
attack. The rescue workers, who are almost all Haredim (strictly Orthodox
Jews), immediately left the Sabbath table where they had been celebrating with
their families, put aside their festive clothing, donned their yellow vests, and
set out to fulfill the commandment that sets aside all other religious
obligations—the preservation of human life.
It was the second week in a row that the volunteers’
Sabbath rest was disrupted. The previous week, the rescue team in Jerusalem
worked around the clock, pulling victims out of the rubble and debris of the
fallen Versailles wedding hall. At one point, when rescue operations were
temporarily suspended until the safety of the site was secured, the volunteers
donned their white shawls for Sabbath prayers. Their life-saving work continued
until the Sabbath was nearly over.
While Muslim fanatics celebrate the cult of death,
promising every suicide bomber a lusty Islamic Valhalla, complete with 72
virginal sex slaves, Israel’s zealots regard the preservation of human life
the most supreme of all religious commandments. And after the last surviving
victim has received first aid and has been transported to the hospital by the Ezer
Mitzion volunteers, the True Mercy team steps in to gather the
scattered remains of the dead, using spatulas and Q-tips to scrape and blot
every last piece of tissue and drop of blood.
Their work is fastidious, because Jewish law requires every
last body part to be collected for burial. Even fruits and vegetables that are
splashed with blood at a marketplace bombing have to be gathered and placed in a
grave. All human remains are bagged, tagged, and meticulously reassembled at the
Abu Kabir Institute of Forensic Medicine. Rabbi Yehudah Meshi-Zahav, who leads
the True Mercy volunteers, is a forensic detective for ZAKA, which
stands for Zikui Korbanot Ason, Identification of Disaster Victims.
The True Mercy volunteers receive no pay for the
work they perform, nor have they received any rewards or public recognition.
They must complete a grueling physical and psychological training course, and
with the frequency of terror attacks since the outbreak of the “intifada,”
their burnout rate is very high. They return from the scene of one disaster only
to hear their pagers summoning them to the next one. Now that the remains of two
of the suicide bombers have been tested positive for Hepatitis B, they expose
themselves to critical illness and even death. Nevertheless, they continue their
activities because they are performing the most exalted form of religious duty:
saving lives and maintaining the human dignity of the murdered victims.
It is inconceivable that anyone could find fault with their
holy efforts, or that anyone would devote an entire day to insult and abuse
them.
But the Saturday following the Tel Aviv bombing, that is
precisely what the Israeli media did.
All the victims of the bombing tragedy were young Russian
immigrants, some of whom were from mixed marriages and therefore, technically,
not Jewish. Somehow, a rumor started that the chevra kadisha (burial
society) would not allow these young victims to be buried in a Jewish cemetery.
The Sabbath may be set aside for the sanctity of saving
human lives, but once the rescue workers completed their task, they returned to
their homes and resumed their stringent observance of the Sabbath. No one from
the rescue squad or the chevra kadisha listened to the radio or watched
television, and never heard the lies and the slanders being hurled against them.
No one from the media called any of them to ask if the rumor was true, and even
if someone had, the chevra kadisha doesn’t answer the phone or give
interviews on the Sabbath.
All day long Saturday, the secular, left-wing media
broadcast abuse and defamation against the members of the chevra kadisha,
the same ones who treated the bits of bone and body parts like sacred objects.
Tommy Lapid, a secular militant who has been described as “what you get when
you cross Don Imus and Madalyn O’Hair,” even went so far as to brand the chevra
kadisha as “collaborators with the Islamic Jihad.” The leaders of the
Reform movement denounced the “Orthodox theocracy,” called for the
establishment of secular cemeteries, and magnanimously offered to bury the
non-Jewish victims at their private cemetery “free of charge.” The false
story went out over the wire services and was reported by the Associated Press
and by the LA Times.
It was not until the Sabbath was over and the religious
community became aware of the slander, that Chief Rabbi Israel Lau was able to
inform the public that none of the terror victims would be denied an honorable
burial. The chief of the chevra kadisha said, as soon as Sabbath was
over, “No one approached us, and in any case, we would not have refused. Oh,
and there is no law in Israel, religious or otherwise, that prohibits the
establishment of secular cemeteries and burial according to one’s funeral
ritual of choice. However, for whatever reason, Israel’s main newspaper, Ha’aretz,
didn’t get around to publishing a retraction until Monday. And Mr. Lapid, the
shrill fellow who compared the chevra kadisha to “Islamic Jihad,”
continues to insist that his version is the correct one.
The volunteers of the chevra kadisha deserve the
greatest praise and support for their selfless work, and those who condemn them
on the basis of a groundless fabrication should be ashamed.
In the merit of their holy deeds, may we suffer no more tragedies and may
we live to see the Redemption, speedily and in our days.
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