Language:
Hebrew
Year of publication:
2022
Titel der Quelle:
משטרה והיסטוריה
Angaben zur Quelle:
4 (2022) 117-192
Keywords:
ZAKA Rescue & Recovery
;
Israel. History 20th century
;
Arab-Israeli conflict Casualties
;
Judaism and state History 20th century
;
Ultra-Orthodox Jews History 20th century
;
Ultra-Orthodox Jews Case studies Attitudes
;
Haifa (Israel) History
Abstract:
The wave of bloody suicide attacks that began in Israel in April 1994 led to many mass and public deaths and posed a series of new challenges for the Israeli police. It also created a challenge for the Halakha and Jewish tradition, which are careful to preserve the dignity of the dead. The police, the operational force on the ground, had to cope with this new phenomenon. An unprecedented answer to the Jewish plight came in the form of ultra-orthodox citizens who volunteered for the civil duty that gradually became the organization known today as Zaka. From the point of view of the police, in the initial stages, the recruitment of the ultra-orthodox was intended to achieve two goals: first, clearing the scenes of the attacks in a way that complies with the basic principles of Halakha regarding dead bodies; and the second, coopting of the leaders of the ultra-orthodox protests, who turned from demonstrators to volunteers recruited to achieve the goals of the police and assist them at the scene of the attacks. The chain of suicide bombings that began with the Oslo accords and ended with the end of the second intifada also created a revolution in the Halakhic worldview that until then rejected touching or moving dead bodies on the Sabbath, and made it possible to care immediately for the bodies of the murdered. The ultra-orthodox volunteers who engaged in this activity treated the bodies of the murdered victims in public, violating a strict religious taboo, and at the same time created a new Halakhic and social reality: those who until recently were law-breaking demonstrators, now became part of the law-enforcement system and were attached to the forensics department, which spearheaded the action at the scene of the attacks. The process of the development of Zaka is divided in the article to three main stages: in the first stage, no special care was given to the remains of bodies left at the scene of the attack, and they were washed with hoses by the fire department or evacuated by individual ultra-orthodox volunteers; in the second stage, an institutionalized cooperation was initiated by the police between the Haifa forensic department and ultra-orthodox volunteers, and a concept of orderly and planned deployment of ultra-orthodox volunteers was formed within Zaka, but only in the northern region; in the third stage, this model was implemented in other regions in Israel, against the background of the expanding wave of attacks, and Zak”a became a nationwide organization. This Article is dedicated to the memory of Major Zvika Kaplan, son of Zila and Yehuda Kaplan, an Israeli hero who fell in battle during Operation Protective Edge.
URL:
אתר את הפרסום בקטלוג המאוחד של ספריות ישראל
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