NEWS FEATURE: In terrorism’s wake, ultra-Orthodox volunteers perform grim burial work

c. 1997 Religion News Service JERUSALEM _ In the immediate aftermath of the latest terrorist bombing in Israel Thursday (Sept. 4), black-coated ultra-Orthodox Jews somberly began combing the blast site, collecting for burial bits of flesh, bone and blood from streets, trees and windows. Using scrapers and rubber gloves, they worked with a near-obsessive zeal […]

c. 1997 Religion News Service

JERUSALEM _ In the immediate aftermath of the latest terrorist bombing in Israel Thursday (Sept. 4), black-coated ultra-Orthodox Jews somberly began combing the blast site, collecting for burial bits of flesh, bone and blood from streets, trees and windows.

Using scrapers and rubber gloves, they worked with a near-obsessive zeal born of devotion to traditional Jewish beliefs about honoring the dead.


This time, the scene of the blast was the popular Ben Yehuda street mall in the heart of downtown Jerusalem. But wherever tragedy strikes in Israel, the volunteers are on the scene to painstakingly search for every last bit of human remains.”Every human being is made in the `image of God,'”said volunteer Elazar Gelbstein, referring to the biblical Book of Genesis.”Even when dead, people must be honored.” Because the human body is the repository of the soul, he said, remains must be treated with the highest respect, lest the divine image be injured.

Gelbstein founded”Chesed shel Emet,”the largest such group of volunteers, in 1987. The organization _ whose name means”true lovingkindness”in Hebrew _ has about 250 volunteers working throughout Israel.

The name itself is a reference to Genesis, specifically the portion recounting how the patriarch Jacob, near death in Egypt, asks his son Joseph to do”kindness and truth”to him by swearing to bring his bones back to the Holy Land for burial.

Jewish tradition regards efforts on behalf of the dead to be the purest form of kindness because the receiver of the act cannot bestow any reward.

Virtually all of the volunteers are ultra-Orthodox Jews. All are male, in accordance with ultra-Orthodox practices concerning the appropriate role of women.”You need to be full of faith”to handle body parts, Gelbstein said during a recent interview prior to Thursday’s bombing.

Traditional Jewish law requires the quick and respectful burial of all remains. It also requires respect for the modesty of the deceased. Even photographs taken at the scene of a terrorist attack must be done in a way that limits exposure of an unclothed dead body, Gelbstein said.

In traditional Jewish observance, a dead body is accompanied from the moment of death until burial. It is carefully bathed by members of a burial society, known in Hebrew as the”Chevra Kadisha,”or holy fellowship.


Chevra Kadisha members even ask the forgiveness of the deceased for any possible lack of deference inadvertently shown to the remains.

Finally, the body wrapped in a simple white shroud and buried, typically within 24 hours of death.

All these practices”are at bottom a tremendous expression of reverence for life,”said Orthodox Rabbi Joel Zeff, a teacher at a Jerusalem yeshiva, or religious school.

The religious volunteers, said Police Commander Eli Shmeltzer, head of Israel’s victim identification division, are part of a team that includes salaried investigators and field assistants charged with identifying the victims and documenting their deaths.

The team goes into action immediately after the injured are removed from the disaster site.”We work together in the spirit of `halacha,’ Jewish law,”said Shmeltzer, who is not himself religiously observant.

In their commitment to”true lovingkindness,”the volunteers do not differentiate between Jews and non-Jews.

Even the remains of a terrorist are cared for with the same fervor for”God’s image.””When he is alive,”Gelbstein said,”it is a `mitzvah’ _ a religious obligation _ to kill the terrorist because he is coming to kill you. But once he is dead, you have to protect the image of God in him. In this, there is no distinction between enemy and friend.” Not surprisingly, it’s an emotionally draining task.


In a radio interview last year at the site of a bus bombing in Jerusalem, Gelbstein, answering a reporter’s question about how he felt, simply broke down in sobs.”It’s very hard work,”Gelbstein said in an understated manner.

A full-beared, burly man whose regular job is assistant director of Jerusalem’s Chevra Kadisha, Gelbstein came to his volunteer work by chance nearly three decades ago.

In 1968, when he was an 18-year-old student, he passed through the northern Israeli city of Tiberias just after a rocket attack from across the Lebanese border.

Along with other young yeshiva students, he threw himself into helping the authorities identify body parts and then making certain that they went to the burial society for proper interment.”Everybody has a job to do in this world,”Gelbstein said.”I felt this as a noble purpose that was my true mission.” Over time, first as a volunteer with the Mogen David Adom, Israel’s equivalent of the Red Cross, he became a trusted adjunct to the work of the police in identifying bodies and removing them from the scene.

After his group’s efficient work following a 1989 terrorist incident _ in which a hijacker forced a bus on the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway over an embankment _ police opened the way for full cooperation with Gelbstein’s squad of volunteers.

In the last two years, however, Gelbstein’s organization has been in conflict with Israeli police over how and under whose control they will operate.


The police now insist that the volunteers be registered as individuals and work directly under police supervision. Gelbstein wants Chesed shel Emet to continue as an independent group working in cooperation with the police.

July’s suicide bombing at Jerusalem’s Mahane Yehuda market marked the first time that volunteers not formally registered with the police were ordered off the site.

However, Chesed shel Emet continues to operate in areas of Israel where the police have not organized their own volunteer corps, or in situations controlled by the army, rather than the police. Still, Gelbstein worries that the new police guidelines may mark the decline of his organization _ many of whose volunteers now work directly under police auspices as Civil Guard Forensic Volunteers.

Over the years, the work of the ultra-Orthodox volunteers has helped to defuse some of the tensions between their community and the secular Israeli majority. Israelis tend to universally admire the volunteers.”They’re doing a beautiful thing,”said Ornan Yekutieli, a Jerusalem city councilman and founder of”Am Hofshi”(A Free People), an organization opposed to what it considers ultra-Orthodox religious coercion.

Yekutieli said this and other volunteer charitable efforts by ultra-Orthodox Jews represent”one step toward their becoming part of the community.” Gelbstein, a follower of the Chabad-Lubavitch Hasidic movement, concurred.”You can see Orthodox people doing the hardest work in moments of crisis. It’s a surprise _ they’re not fanatics, they’re good people,”he said.

Over the ten years of its existence, Chesed shel Emet has received prizes and awards from the Israeli parliament, the president of Israel and such private organizations as B’nai B’rith and Israel’s Rotary Society.


The group’s work has also helped the secular majority better understand the fierce ultra-Orthodox opposition to archaeological digs that disturb ancient burial sites.”It’s the same thing whether someone died now or 2,000 years ago,”said Gelbstein.”If you keep this respect for the dead,”he added,”the message is that you can be good to each other in life, too, in a good time.”

DEA END MARGOLIS

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