"Everywhere, the acrid smell of bodies hangs inthe air," writes the head of the ZAKA International Rescue Unit MatiGoldstein in an email to the ZAKA headquarters in Jerusalem. 'It's justlike the stories we are told of the Holocaust - thousands of bodieseverywhere. You have to understand that the situation is true madness,and the more time passes, there are more and more bodies, in numbersthat cannot be grasped. It is beyond comprehension."
Andthis from someone who, as a volunteer with the Israel-based ZAKA rescueand recovery humanitarian organization for the last 13 years, hasassisted at Israel's worst terror attacks and witnessed the horrors ofinternational mass casualty incidents from the tsunami to Mumbai, NewOrleans to Istanbul.
A father of four, American-born and Israel-raised Goldstein, istypical of ZAKA's 1500 volunteers - highly trained and ready to dropeverything at a moment's notice to help others, regardless of religion,race or creed. Goldstein and three team members were in Mexico City,completing their sacred work in the aftermath of a helicopter crashthat killed four Mexican Jews, when the earthquake happened.
Recognized by the United Nations as an internationalhumanitarian volunteer organization, the ZAKA International Rescue Unit(the first Israeli delegation to arrive) was dispatched to thecollapsed 8-storey university building where the cries of trappedstudents could clearly be heard. In a painstaking, 38 hour operation,the ZAKA team, working with the Mexican military and Mexican Jewishvolunteers, created a tunnel through the rubble to reach the survivors,trapped in air pockets under the collapsed 8 storey building. One byone, they succeeded in pulling eight students alive from the rubble.
Shabbat in Haiti for the ultra-orthodox ZAKAvolunteers was, in Goldstein's words, "the Shabbat from hell. Amid thestench and chaos, the ZAKA delegation took time out to recite Shabbatprayers - a surreal sight of ultra-orthodox men wrapped in prayershawls standing on the collapsed buildings. Many locals sat quietly inthe rubble, staring at the men as they prayed facing Jerusalem. At theend of the prayers, they crowded around the delegation and kissed theprayer shawls."
The team has continued its life-saving, rescue and recoverywork during every daylight hour (work stops at night due to theworsening safety situation in Haiti). Captured in a surreal videoclip, the ZAKA volunteers took time out from the grim reality andtaught the Haitians how to sing Heveinu Shalom Aleichem in Hebrew.
Asthe rescue mission turns into a recovery operation, the ZAKA volunteerswho are highly trained and experienced in this specialist area, willremain in Haiti for another month to help with the recovery,identification and burial of bodies."This is the mission of the ZAKA International Rescue Unit:,"adds ZAKA founder and chairman Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, "to assist in masscasualty incidents wherever they occur in the world, regardless ofreligion, race or creed. If there's no respect for the dead, there's norespect for life".,To donate to the ZAKA Haiti fund: https://www.zaka.us/haiti.asp