This article was written in cooperation with ZAKA.
“I have a dream,” says Dubi Weissenstern, CEO of ZAKA, “of a resilience center for ZAKA volunteers. But the truth is,” he continues, “that since October 7, it has become a necessity.”
ZAKA is the Israeli emergency response service that responds to natural disasters, road accidents, murders, and terrorist attacks, whose volunteers engage in dignified handling and identification of the deceased. Following October 7, when Hamas terrorists attacked southern Israel, ZAKA volunteers experienced extreme trauma in their recovery of the bodies of the murdered victims of the Hamas atrocities.
Weissenstern realizes that ZAKA, as an organization that deals with the deceased, is on the lowest rung of the emergency response ladder, below the IDF, the police, and lifesaving organizations such as Magen David Adom. ZAKA operates from a small office in Jerusalem near the Central Bus Station, where its equipment – body bags, gloves, and boots – are stored. There is a second location in Petah Tikva.
ZAKA’s real value lies in its volunteers
ZAKA’s real value lies in its volunteers. “On October 7, we emptied our storage containers and brought everything,” Weissenstern recalls. “But what I have are the hearts and souls of our volunteers, who ran onto the battlefield for one purpose – to honor the dead.”
During the first week following the attacks of October 7, many ZAKA volunteers worked non-stop. One of the organization’s top volunteers, a Haifa resident, spent that week in the South, working from early morning until late in the evening, and catching bits of sleep at bus shelters or in his car. On Friday, he returned to Haifa to spend Shabbat with his family. “On Friday afternoon,” Weissenstern says, “his wife called me and said, ‘Something is wrong with my husband. He is sitting on the sofa, but he won’t respond to anyone.’ This was our first realization that October 7 was an extremely complex mental health event.” Weissenstern arranged for a psychiatrist to visit the volunteer’s home, where he received the first mental health treatment given to a ZAKA worker. “At that point,” Weissenstern says, “that’s when the idea of creating a resilience center for ZAKA was born.”
One month after the war started, ZAKA launched its resilience division and hired a psychologist to treat its members. “For 35 years,” says Weissenstern, “ZAKA members said, ‘We’re strong; we don’t need therapy.’ Our faith was our strength, but October 7 broke something in us. It was too much. When we arrive at the site of an accident, there is usually one story – a crash and one or two victims. This time, there were too many. We couldn’t process anything.”
ZAKA began to conduct support sessions for its volunteers, and they started to share their feelings. Says Weissenstern, “Some of them said, ‘I come home and I’m angry, but I don’t know why, and it wasn’t like this before.’ When we announced support meetings for volunteers, they ran to attend because these meetings enabled them to regain the strength to return to their families.”
The problem, explains Weissenstern, is that ZAKA has no permanent place for its volunteers to rest, relax, or discuss their experiences. “If they had a home – even a place where they could enjoy a quick cup of coffee after a shift and unwind – it would change everything.”
Enter Weissenstern’s dream – resilience centers for ZAKA volunteers. These proposed centers, he explains, do not have to be large or opulent. They can be small, with a room, a few chairs, and some equipment; or some can be larger, with a room to listen to music, relax, or work out. In the ultimate version of his dream, Weissenstern envisions 70 such locations throughout Israel, wherever ZAKA can be found.
The very nature of working for ZAKA, he explains, requires one to confront death and tragedy daily. “A 90-year-old car accident victim might remind volunteers of their grandfather,” says Weissenstern. “They return home broken. If they had a place to stop, just to take a breath before walking in the front door, they’d be healthier, and their families wouldn’t pay the price.”
Building resilience centers for ZAKA volunteers, he explains, is more than just designing a physical structure. It is a system that can support volunteers and their families – their spouses and their children, who also suffer when the volunteers return after dealing with tragedy. In 2025 alone, ZAKA volunteers have handled 115 deaths from traffic accidents and deal with between 1,000 and 1,500 deaths each year in accidents, suicides, murders, and terror attacks.
Weissenstern contrasts the work of ZAKA volunteers with others who experience death. “A soldier’s job is to take control of an area and advance, but their ultimate goal is not to kill. They don’t always encounter death. The entire principle of ZAKA is to care for the dead – again and again.”
Weissenstern returns to the still difficult memories of October 7. “I remember the cries and screams I heard on the walkie-talkie when we arrived in Re’im. Anyone who had experienced their own version of hell that night realized that what had occurred in Re’im was even worse.”
Weissenstern describes how, for the volunteers in Re’im, the place had become a foreign land. “We were in hell. We urged the drivers of each wagon that was carrying bodies, ‘Go and return to Israel!’ Yet we were in Israel.”
“What we did during that time was a great sanctification of the name of God [kiddush Hashem],” says Weissenstern. “We had a tremendous responsibility on our shoulders.”
He recalls that a Holocaust survivor contacted him during the first weeks of the war. “He said to me, ‘During the Holocaust, we had no hope, but what you did has given us hope. Am Yisrael chai [the people of Israel live]!’ At that point, I began to understand the significance of what we did,” he says with great emotion. “On the one hand, what he said moved me greatly. On the other hand, how do I handle this responsibility that has been placed on my shoulders?”
Recalling the complete devastation that they witnessed in Re’im, Weissenstern says that when they arrived at the homes of the victims, an expert from the Israel Antiquities Authority had to examine the homes for bodies that had been completely burnt before the ZAKA volunteers could enter. “Even after all we saw, some of us feel that perhaps it wasn’t real,” he says.
“But we saw, we touched. We are the testimony, and we cannot forget.”
The organization’s name, ZAKA, is an acronym for the Hebrew words zihuy korbanot ason, which mean “identifying victims of tragedy.” However, in light of its importance for Jews worldwide and unifying the Jewish community, Weissenstern suggests that it can also stand for the Hebrew words Zeh kiruv achim, which mean “This brings us together.”
“We bring Jews together – Ashkenazim, Sephardim, secular, religious, men, women,” he says.
Weissenstern plans to begin raising funds for the resilience centers in May and estimates that the first center will open in six months. Creating a network of 60 to 70 such centers for ZAKA personnel in Israel is a 15-year project, he estimates.
“Sometimes,” concludes Weissenstern, “we are afraid that we can’t smile or laugh when we are around others who are not members of ZAKA because if they see us smiling, they’ll say, ‘How could they smile after what they saw and experienced?’ But we can laugh in our meetings when we are together and in our safe space – certainly when we build our resilience centers. That’s why I believe in the necessity of having ZAKA resilience centers. I have a dream.”■
This article was written in cooperation with ZAKA.