Rabbinic council forms squad of Jewish priests for Temple Mount attacks

ZAKA, the ultra-Orthodox emergency rescue and post-disaster identification service, has spent the past two weeks since the July 14 terror attack on the Temple Mount wrestling with a new problem: How do observant Jews tread on the holy, forbidden ground of the ancient Temple to provide emergency medical care or remove bodies after a terror attack?

The issue arose after the July 14 attack in which three Arab Israeli gunmen killed two Israeli police officers. ZAKA crews obtained rabbinic permission to enter the Mount to provide assistance after that attack, but the rabbis — ZAKA’s rabbinic council, to be exact — then got to work producing a clear-cut policy on the question.

According to the religious news site Kipa, the council has issued its ruling. Saving a life trumps nearly any other consideration in Jewish law, so medical rescue on the Mount is not a problem. When it comes to dead bodies, crews are still required to enter the sacred Temple Mount space because of the standing duty in Jewish law to ensure that the ritually impure — nothing is more impure in Jewish law than the dead — does not remain in there.

The rabbis also decided on the formation of a special team within ZAKA consisting solely of kohanim, or descendants of ancient priestly families. There are sections on the Mount, the former locations of the inner courtyards of the ancient temples, where only kohanim may tread. When it comes to removing bodies or treating wounded in those areas, ZAKA will now be sending only kohanim.