Zaka volunteers at work
Eighteen-year-old Shimie was studying the Torah at a Jerusalem library when the sound of an explosion ripped through the silence. “I immediately ran outside and headed toward the carnage,” he recalls. As Shimie approached the scene of the blast – which had been a terrorist attack – he felt frustrated that he had neither the equipment nor expertise to help the victims scattered around him.
At that moment he decided to join Zaka.
Zaka, which receives significant support from The Fellowship and its partners, is an elite squad of first responders to terror attacks, natural disasters, and other tragedies. They perform emergency medical procedures and search-and-rescue operations, but their specialty is identifying body parts for burial, a mission of great importance for those observing Jewish law.
Perhaps the most impressive element of Zaka is that all 1,500 members are volunteers.
In addition to serving Israel, a land rocked by countless terror attacks, Zaka has sent volunteers to assist in the wake of natural disasters and terrorist attacks around the globe, including Haiti, Japan, Mumbai, New Orleans, and New York City.
Drawn to this specialized service, Shimie volunteered for Zaka and, like all members, underwent extensive training before being sent into the field. Shimie keeps his Zaka beeper and walkie-talkie on him all day and night in the event of an emergency.
Just as Shimie will never forget the day of that terrorist attack in Jerusalem, there’s another event that’s seared in his memory. He was riding his motorcycle near the Jerusalem Central Bus Station in 2008 when he heard on his Zaka walkie-talkie that shots had been fired at a religious school for boys in the Mercav Harav neighborhood of Jerusalem. Within minutes, Shimie was the first respondent on the scene, where he learned that a lone Palestinian gunman had walked into the school, killed eight students, and wounded eleven more.
When Shimie entered the school library from a back entrance, he could hear shots still being fired. He later learned that these were likely the bullets that killed the terrorist, who was shot by an armed Israeli civilian who came in as soon as he heard the commotion.
Shimie saw a student lying on the ground covered with blood. He had been shot in the stomach and chest but was still conscious. Immediately Shimie evacuated the teenager from the building and rushed him to the first ambulance that appeared on the scene.
“There was total chaos and confusion when I first came in to Mercaz Harav that night,” Shimie recalls. “The five extra minutes that that boy would’ve waited had I not pulled him out when I did would have ended his life.” Thanks to Shimie’s quick actions and the training he received from Zaka, the terror attack wasn’t as tragic as it could have been.
Shimie remembers this night not with frustration and helplessness, but with pride and gratitude for the role he was able to play in serving his beloved Israel. And we at The Fellowship are proud to support this organization that does so much good in Israel – and around the world.
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