About
ZAKA ('Disaster Victim Identification') is a network of voluntary community emergency response teams. ZAKA's job is to collect every part of the remains of the dead, including their blood so that they can be buried in accordance with Jewish religious law. The organization is called on to deal with the most traumatic events, including natural disasters, car accidents, and terrorism. The organization traces its roots to a group of religious volunteers who assisted in the recovery of human remains after terrorist attacks in the 1990s. They concluded that if, in the enemy's view, everyone is equal, so too for them. ZAKA’s members are almost all Ultra-Orthodox Jews, but in 2005, it established a minority unit with Bedouin, Muslim, and Druze volunteers to serve Israel's non-Jewish communities. ZAKA volunteers took part in numerous international rescue & recovery operations.