This is the Forward’s coverage of ZAKA (an acronym for the Hebrew translation of “Disaster Victim Identification”), Israel’s volunteer emergency-response organization.
ZAKA
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Culture This initiative is helping Israeli war survivors heal through art — and is making therapy cool
The 8 Project brings survivors to LA and NYC for an unconventional, art-based method for processing trauma
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Fast Forward Ex-Zaka leader Yehuda Meshi-Zahav attempts suicide amid molestation probe
(JTA) — Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, a former leader of the Zaka emergency response organization in Israel, is in critical condition after trying to take his own life Thursday amid allegations that he had sexually assaulted minors. Meshi-Zahav, 61, was rushed to the hospital in Jerusalem with life-threatening injuries, but medical personnel succeeded in stabilizing his condition,…
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Fast Forward Israeli Divers To Search Danube River For Remains Of Holocaust Victims
(JTA) — Divers from Israel’s ZAKA Search and Rescue will begin to search the Danube River in Hungary for the remains of Jewish Holocaust victims. The work, which was scheduled to begin on Tuesday, comes nearly 75 years after tens of thousands of Hungarian Jews in October 1944 were shot on the banks of the…
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Fast Forward WATCH: Elderly Israeli Aid Worker Attacked By Lion While On Safari
The chairman of an Israeli aid group was attacked by a lion while on safari in Africa, the Jewish Chronicle reported. Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the head of ZAKA, who was in South Africa to train search and rescue volunteers, was pounced on by a lioness as he walked next to her. “It was absolutely terrifying, for…
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Fast Forward Israeli Volunteers Pull Rabbi’s Body From Rubble Of Mexico Earthquake
(JTA) — Volunteers from Israel’s ZAKA search and rescue organization recovered from a collapsed office building in Mexico the body of a local rabbi. Rabbi Haim Ashkenazi had been working in the office building when the 7.1-magnitude earthquake struck central Mexico on Tuesday afternoon, rocking the capital of Mexico City and causing hundreds of buildings…
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Fast Forward ZAKA Team Helps With Harvey Relief Push
JERUSALEM (JTA) — A team of volunteers from Israel’s ZAKA Search and Rescue organization is in Houston to help with clean up in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. The eight-member team will be joined by four more volunteers in the coming days, the organization said. The volunteers currently are assisting throughout the city with tasks…
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News Reaching Out To Save Lives
The image of Israel’s Haredim has taken a public battering over the past few months, particularly over the issue of discriminatory conduct toward women, which even a few Haredi groups have disavowed. But in an unusual act of outreach, some of these ultra-Orthodox Jews have recently found an original way of engaging with people outside…
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The Schmooze Man Eats 105 Sufganiyot for Charity
Elie Klein is a guy who really puts his — or rather, other people’s — money where his mouth is. Following a tradition he started last year, Klein, a Yeshiva University graduate and account executive for the Ruder Finn communications agency who lives in Beit Shemesh, ate as many sufganiyot as possible during Hanukkah to…
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