The Cult of Dismembered Limbs Jewish Rites of Death

Jewish Rites of Death at the Scene of Palestinian Suicide Terrorism

By: Gideon Aran

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Paperback | 14 December 2024

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352 Pages

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15.9 x 23.5 x 2.2

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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.

Industry Reviews

"An illuminating work... The book's text testifies to the depth of his penetration of the intra-organizational discourse and the thinking guiding its members. The result is a brilliant study that exposes the reader to a new Jewish-Haredi subgroup and its beliefs, customs and rites." -- Haaretz "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." -- David A. Rier, Contemporary Jewry

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