ZAKA: Bodies of Pittsburgh victims remain in synagogue
"We are trying to work with the Pittsburgh police, but it is difficult because they don't understand our needs."
By SAMUEL THROPEUpdated: OCTOBER 28, 2018 12:54Residents talk to the media near the site of a mass shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood on October 27, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania(photo credit: JEFF SWENSEN / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP)
Local police and the FBI have still not given permission for the bodies of the victims of Saturday's mass shooting to be removed from the Tree of Life Synagogue for burial, ZAKA Commander in Pittsburgh Rabbi Elisar Adom told Army Radio Sunday morning."We are trying to work with the Pittsburgh police, but it is difficult because they don't understand our needs," Adom said. "They are not taking any chances.""ZAKA Search and Rescue USA is waiting in the field for permission to enter the site to treat the bodies of the victims, which remain on the floor of the synagogue where they were murdered," a ZAKA statement to the press said.The Israeli-born Adom, who worked as a ZAKA volunteer in Israel before moving to the United States, compared the deadly shooting, which claimed 11 lives, to the 2008 Mercaz Harav terror attack in Jerusalem, according to the press release.The victims, Adom said, "were older people who had come to pray in the morning. There were two different synagogues in the same building, on different floors." The suspected perpetrator "ran on each floor, murdering people in the synagogues themselves and in the emergency exit.""This is a terrible tragedy," he said, affecting "people who we know and live with all the time. I know some of the people very well. It is a terrible tragedy, an indescribable act."“We are in shock," Adom said. "The situation will change now, but we will not be broken, we are the Jewish people and we will continue to live."
