Appearing at Monday’s Jerusalem Post Conference in New York, Moshe Rosenberg, director of ZAKA USA, and Greg Champagne, immediate past President of the National Sheriffs’ Association, discussed the collaboration between the two organizations, which includes training of US law enforcement agencies in handling terrorism incidents and mass casualty events, focusing on forensic preservation at crime scenes, and ensuring that bodies are handled with dignity.
Rosenberg recalled the conversation he had with his brother on October 7, who is a longtime ZAKA commander and volunteer in Israel, which underscored both the tragic events of the day and the meaningful work ZAKA was doing. “I went to synagogue that morning, and as soon as I arrived, people were talking, and rumors started to spread about what was going on. I couldn’t wait until the holiday ended, and I called my brother. He was in the Shura army base where the bodies of the victims were transferred. As he was speaking with me, I heard his radio transmit a message from an IDF commander, asking him if ZAKA had any spare body bags.”
After learning more details of the tragic events from his brother, Rosenberg spoke with ZAKA CEO Dubi Weissenstern, who directed him to obtain funding to purchase bulletproof gear for ZAKA volunteers who were going into the Gaza Envelope to collect the bodies of the victims, as well as for additional body bags.
Sheriff Champagne congratulated ZAKA for its work, and said it is “an amazing organization, unlike anything I’ve ever seen, that is doing God’s work.” Recalling his trip to Israel in November 2023, he said, “We went to the Sderot Police Station, where we met with law enforcement officers, who went from policing the streets as we do to becoming combat soldiers in an instant, literally defending their families that were a couple of miles in homes behind them.”
ZAKA’s resilience director is scheduled to lead seminars for the Sheriff’s Association next week in Omaha, Nebraska. “We have joined at the hip with ZAKA, and we look forward to a meaningful relationship and how we can help them and learn from them,” he said.
Rosenberg also discussed ZAKA’s virtual autopsy technology, which enables noninvasive forensic body examinations using MRI and CAT SCAN technology, while preserving the dignity of the victims.
This article was written in cooperation with ZAKA.