After All They Do, ZAKA Volunteers Can’t Afford Therapy

“The Jerusalem tragedy that took place yesterday evening, where a woman and her four children were killed, was one of the most difficult scenes ZAKA volunteers have had to endure.

Even those ZAKA volunteers who have become used to witnessing difficult scenes, felt that this was different. “I was reminded of the scenes at the Sbarro restaurant”, noted Natan Koenig, a 20 year veteran volunteer in ZAKA Jerusalem, referring to the 2001 suicide bomb attack. “The scene, burnt bodies of children, the smell in the air, the difficult scene took me back all those years to the Sbarro restaurant”.

With tears in his eyes, ZAKA Jerusalem Commander Bentzi Oering carried out the body of the two year old child in his arms. Oering, who has witnessed countless horrific terror attacks and other incidents in the capital over decades, could not hold back the tears and collapsed into the arms of his son, Yehiel Oering, who is also a ZAKA Jerusalem volunteer.”

ZAKA volunteers have chosen a life that most of us could not bear. For the sake of doing the mitzvah of chesed shel emes, they run toward scenes of terror & death. They can never unsee what they have seen. Now, how will they heal?

How can they return home and be expected to live without anxiety, without depression, without fear for the future? How do they work in their jobs, care for their families, when traumas haunt them behind every doorstep?

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These courageous men and women deserve access to therapists, so that they can fully process and integrate the traumas that they have experienced. However, being a volunteer organization, and with budgets pouring into medical resources and stab-proof safety gear, there is simply no funding for them to take care of themselves.

If you believe that ZAKA volunteers should be able to go home to their families with peace of mind, to be able to momentarily forget the traumas that they have witnessed, please give what you can.

They have given so much to us — now we must give back.

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