‘We are living in a very difficult time,” says Dubi Weissenstern, CEO of ZAKA. “We simply don’t understand what’s happening.”
Over the past six years, ZAKA, Israel’s emergency response service that responds to natural disasters, road accidents, murders, and terrorist attacks, has been deeply involved in the crises that have confronted the country – the COVID-19 pandemic, which began in January 2020, the Meron tragedy in April 2021, when 45 people were crushed to death at the Lag Ba’omer observances, the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the subsequent war, and the Israel-Iran conflict.
“First, we had COVID, which was a global crisis,” he notes. “Then Meron. Then, Oct. 7 happened. These are national, civil, and Jewish tragedies – and beyond that, we have experienced rising antisemitism. And yet, we also see miracles – how many people were saved, and how the country survived.”
While the events of Oct. 7 and the current war loom large, Weissenstern focuses on the tragedy at Meron, which took place five years ago on Lag Ba’omer, the holiday that marks the anniversary of the passing of Talmudic sage Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai and the day, according to Jewish tradition, when a plague ceased among the disciples of Rabbi Akiva.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people converge at the tomb of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai in the northern town of Meron, located on the slopes of Mount Meron in the Upper Galilee near Safed. The highlight of the event is the bonfire lit on the roof of the tomb, followed by music and dancing. Many haredi families bring their three-year-old sons for their first haircut in Meron, an occasion marked by great celebration.
This year, Lag Ba’omer was observed on Monday evening, May 4, and Tuesday, May 5. Due to security concerns involving rocket fire from Lebanon, the Israeli government canceled the mass celebrations at Mount Meron.
“It is a religious event – the largest ultra-Orthodox gathering of the year,” Weissenstern explains. “Hundreds of thousands of people attend, from Israel and abroad. Some come especially from the United States, even just for one day – not necessarily only on Lag Ba’omer, though certainly then. Over a 36-hour period, before and after Lag Ba’omer, the number of people who gather is enormous. It is a deeply joyful and emotional ceremony, filled with prayer and spirituality. People believe that many salvations come from the prayers there, and I believe that too.”
ON THE evening of April 30, 2021, Weissenstern was in ZAKA’s command center in Meron at the base of the mountain when he was informed that a mass casualty event had taken place and that there were at least five injured. A narrow passage became blocked, causing a crush of people, who slipped and fell on top of one another. “I washed my face and told myself that if they’re saying there are five injured, it’s probably more. I kept washing my face over and over, thinking that this is my last moment before everything changes.”
When Weissenstern left the command center, he learned that the number of casualties had risen to eight, and shortly thereafter, it rose yet again. “I searched for the cause of the fatalities – a terrorist, a gas explosion, a collapsed wall. But there was no visible disaster – just bodies. Forty-five people died, and I remember it like it was yesterday.”
After identifying the victims, Weissenstern and members of ZAKA brought the bodies to a synagogue near the site. Rather than transporting the dead in individual ambulances, they decided to use vans intended for the Lag Ba’omer event. They removed the equipment and supplies from the vans and transported the bodies of the victims to the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, where their families were waiting. “Police escorted the convoy – it felt like a motorcade for a president or prime minister,” he says sadly.
The first group of victims – some 15 or 16 – were buried before Shabbat. The identification of the victims continued after Shabbat concluded.
FOR WEISSENSTERN, loading the bodies of the victims in Meron onto transport vans was a prelude for the tragic events of Oct. 7, two and a half years later, when ZAKA volunteers loaded the bodies of those murdered by Hamas in southern Israel, and drove them to the Shura military base near Ramle. “I didn’t know that just two years after Meron, something similar would happen again, and we would have to load vehicles with the bodies of the dead. It was a prelude for what was to come.”
Weissenstern emphasizes that while one cannot fully fathom what has happened to the Jewish people over the past several years, it is important to maintain a sense of national unity. “A Jew is always a Jew. It doesn’t matter who he is or how he looks. Must he wear a kippah on his head? No. Must he have a shtriemel on his head? No. When I see someone in Tel Aviv who is bareheaded and doesn’t wear a kippah, I imagine to myself that his head is covered. Why? Because he is a Jew. We may not always recognize what we are, but we are Jews, and we need to carry that with pride. Not necessarily by shouting it in the streets, but by knowing it within ourselves. You cannot escape it. Every Jew knows the words ‘Shema Yisrael.’
“At the end of the day, everything comes down to one principle: Love your fellow as yourself. That is the whole Torah. That is my belief. We go through so many hardships – and we need to be united, at least for ourselves.”
Weissenstern likens the current events in Israel to the story of Purim, in which events developed slowly, though ultimately to a positive conclusion. “When we read the megillah in the synagogue on Purim, it takes just 40 minutes. Yet the entire Purim story took 13 years from beginning to end. Just as with the Purim story, we are still in the middle of a complicated and complex story, but we don’t know exactly which part of the story we are in.”
Returning to the recent events of the Israel-Iran conflict, Weissenstern recalls one morning when the air raid sirens sounded repeatedly in Jerusalem. His young son asked him to explain why the air raid sirens were sounding so frequently. “The entire family was in the safe room when he asked this question,” he recalls, “and I said to him, ‘The reason the air raid siren sounds so often is to enable us to get used to the sound of the shofar of the Messiah when he will arrive. This way, we will be accustomed to the sound and will not be taken by surprise.’“It is a gradual process. We need the Messiah to come.”
This article was written in cooperation with ZAKA.
Source:
www.jpost.com
