French ZAKA team aids in sending victims’ bodies to Israel
Volunteers from ZAKA Paris collecting victims’ remains to ensure proper Jewish burial.
By DANIEL K. EISENBUDCoffins of Paris kosher market attack being transported to Israel(photo credit: ZAKA RESCUE AND RECOVERY ORGANIZATION)
Volunteers from ZAKA aided French security officials Monday in securing the sites of last week’s dual terrorist attacks in Paris, and preparing the bodies of the four Jews murdered in a supermarket for their funerals in Israel.ZAKA International Rescue Unit head Mati Goldstein said volunteers from ZAKA Paris, led by Rabbi Tzemach Ben-Naim, had been collecting the victims’ remains to ensure a proper Jewish burial.“After complex discussions and outreach... with the Foreign Ministry and Jewish community leaders in Paris, we were able to get permission from the attorney-general of France to enter the scene of the attack and collect the remains,” he said.Ben-Naim, who also serves as the president of the Jewish Burial Society in Paris, added: “This is a very difficult attack for France as a whole, and the Jewish community in particular.”He said he was deeply moved upon arriving at the scene and seeing hundreds of French Jews of all denominations already there.“When they saw the ZAKA team go into the supermarket...they showed their appreciation, especially when they saw Jews from France and Israel coming together to perform true virtue,” he said.Paris ZAKA volunteer Avraham Weinberg said, “It was a very difficult scene inside the supermarket.It was as if time stood still, with shopping carts full of food... But the floor was covered in the blood of the victims.”
