Unpaid Zaka workers to submit court request for receivership
By Asaf Carmel, Haaretz Correspondent
Employees of Zaka are expected to submit a request Thursday morning to the Jerusalem District Court to place the rescue and recovery organization into receivership.
The petitioners, a group of only 18 workers, have not received their salaries for a few months due to the large debt burden being carried by Zaka. The organization is best known for the painstaking work it does in retrieving body parts after suicide bombings.
Zaka owes over NIS 8 million to banks, suppliers, and to the National Insurance and Income Tax authorities. The employees are asking for a temporary receiver who might effect a recovery, but a request for permanent receivership was also submitted.
Zaka's subsists entirely on donations, and during the height of the intifada money from Israel and abroad poured in.
"The 'good times' are over," said spokesman Ozer Silberschlag, in an ironic reference to the steep drop in donations that followed the decrease in terror attacks. Zaka's income dropped from NIS 15.9 million in 2003 to NIS 9.2 million in 2004. Officials claim that their activities have not been reduced, since every year the organization deals with an
increasing number of cases of unnatural death such as suicides or traffic accidents.
Zaka also sent rescue teams to Taba and to Thailand last year, at great expense.
"Since we began in one small room on Shmuel Hanavi Street [in Jerusalem] 10 years ago, people from all over have joined and more and more activities were added," said Silberschlag. "Today Zaka deals with a great number of cases that the public never sees. The insurance on our motorcycles alone costs one million shekels every year."
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, Zaka's founder and chairman, said, "There's no space left on the walls for the thank-you plaques, but it ends there. To our sorrow, or perhaps our shame, we don't get a single shekel from the government. We aren't tax-exempt like Magen David Adom, and I also don't receive money from the insurance companies as they do for every traffic accident, and from the National Insurance Institute for every terror incident," he said.
Director-general Mordechai Feldstein, a signatory to the petition, noted that at the same time the organization is requesting a receiver, four of its employees are in New Orleans helping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
By Asaf Carmel, Haaretz Correspondent
Employees of Zaka are expected to submit a request Thursday morning to the Jerusalem District Court to place the rescue and recovery organization into receivership.
The petitioners, a group of only 18 workers, have not received their salaries for a few months due to the large debt burden being carried by Zaka. The organization is best known for the painstaking work it does in retrieving body parts after suicide bombings.
Zaka owes over NIS 8 million to banks, suppliers, and to the National Insurance and Income Tax authorities. The employees are asking for a temporary receiver who might effect a recovery, but a request for permanent receivership was also submitted.
Zaka's subsists entirely on donations, and during the height of the intifada money from Israel and abroad poured in.
"The 'good times' are over," said spokesman Ozer Silberschlag, in an ironic reference to the steep drop in donations that followed the decrease in terror attacks. Zaka's income dropped from NIS 15.9 million in 2003 to NIS 9.2 million in 2004. Officials claim that their activities have not been reduced, since every year the organization deals with an
increasing number of cases of unnatural death such as suicides or traffic accidents.
Zaka also sent rescue teams to Taba and to Thailand last year, at great expense.
"Since we began in one small room on Shmuel Hanavi Street [in Jerusalem] 10 years ago, people from all over have joined and more and more activities were added," said Silberschlag. "Today Zaka deals with a great number of cases that the public never sees. The insurance on our motorcycles alone costs one million shekels every year."
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, Zaka's founder and chairman, said, "There's no space left on the walls for the thank-you plaques, but it ends there. To our sorrow, or perhaps our shame, we don't get a single shekel from the government. We aren't tax-exempt like Magen David Adom, and I also don't receive money from the insurance companies as they do for every traffic accident, and from the National Insurance Institute for every terror incident," he said.
Director-general Mordechai Feldstein, a signatory to the petition, noted that at the same time the organization is requesting a receiver, four of its employees are in New Orleans helping with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
[בילד – נישט אפגעהיט]