Read more
This book presents for the first time a comprehensive and nuanced portrayal of ZAKA -- an organization of ultra-orthodox religious Jews who rush to the sites of Palestinian suicide attacks in Israel to care for the mutilated corpses of the victims according to an intricate, symbolically charged, macabre rite. Gideon Aran has spent years embedded with the men of ZAKA, and in this gripping ethnography he takes readers inside the organization and on the ground with these men as they do their gruesome -- but, in their view, holy -- work.
List of contents
- Preface
- 1. Hell: The Arena of Suicide Terrorism from a Zero Range
- Part I: Introducing ZAKA: Roots, Context, Composition, Dynamics
- 2. Fascination with Unnatural death: Past and Present
- 3. Culture and Personality of Horrific Death Specialists
- 4. Torah Study vs. Deathwork
- 5. New Torah: Terrorism-Centered Sacred Norms
- Part II: Themes in the Anthropology and Sociology of ZAKA
- 6. Strange pairings
- 7. God-Fearing Acrobats
- 8. The Spell of Tearing the Body Apart; The Magic of Piecing the Body Together
- 9. Pious Counterterrorism
- Epilogue: Headhunting, Smiles, and Human Sacrifice
- Endnotes
- Index
About the author
Gideon Aran is a professor of sociology and anthropology at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He is the author, most recently, of The Smile of the Human Bomb: New Perspectives on Suicide Terrorism.
Summary
When a suicide terrorist strikes in Israel, the usual contingent of first responders that one might see anywhere in the world -- police, medics, firefighters -- are accompanied by another group, one found only in Israel. They wear yarmulkes, white coveralls, rubber gloves, and dayglo yellow vests. These are the men of ZAKA, an Israeli religious organization dedicated to dealing with the mutilated and scorched bodies and the severed limbs of the victims of violent death, mainly those killed by Palestinian terrorism.
ZAKA arose, reached its peak, and gained fame during the two waves of suicide terrorism that characterized the intensification of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the last decade of the 20th century and the first five years of the twenty-first century. ZAKA has a few hundred all-male activists, typically volunteers, exclusively Haredi (ultra-orthodox) Jews. Well trained and equipped, they are among the first to arrive at the sites of unnatural death, especially the arenas of mass mortality, where they perform a scrupulous procedure, laden with symbolism. This involves collecting the corpses and body parts, sorting them, identifying them, and reassembling them while diligently preserving respect for the dead and for body parts, and preparing them for burial according to the rigid strictures of Jewish law. Gideon Aran has spent years embedded with the men of ZAKA, and in this gripping ethnography he takes readers inside the organization and on the ground with these men as they do their gruesome -- but, in their view, holy -- work.
Additional text
Aran correctly claims that this book will interest multiple audiences. Indeed, it should have very wide appeal in fields such as: anthropology; sociology; psychology; Jewish, Israeli, and Mideast studies; disaster and trauma studies; death and dying studies; and public health. The book is replete with insights and is generally well written.
