Volunteer Healing and Resilience Unit

Explore and support ZAKA's Healing and Resilience Unit where volunteers who respond to traumatic scenes of terror attacks and catastrophes, receive specialized care to recover and build resilience for themselves and their families.

Here, you'll be able to listen to volunteers who stepped forward and discover the programs you can enable to support them.

Walk with us

Together we'll help light prevail.

Helping Volunteers Recover

ThePrograms

Individual Trauma Therapy

Duration: 24 Sessions
Participants per Session: 1 Volunteer
Associated Costs: $2,560/Volunteer

Wilderness Recovery and Resilience Workshop: Metzoke Dragot

Duration: 2 Days
Participants per Session: 24 Volunteers
Associated Costs: $680/Volunteer

Individual VR-Enhanced Trauma Therapy

Duration: 4 Months, 1-2 Sessions/Week
Participants per Session: 1 Volunteer
Associated Costs: $1,500/Volunteer

Social-Experiential Resilience Workshop

Duration: 1 Day
Participants per Session: 24 Volunteers
Associated Costs: $175/Volunteer

Family Support Workshop

Duration: 1 Day
Participants per Session: 24 Spouses
Associated Costs: $155/Person

Psychological First Aid

Immediate psychological first aid following high-stress events.

Experiential Resilience Program: Diving

Duration: 2 Days
Participants per Session: 6 Volunteers
Associated Costs: $500/Volunteer

Experiential Resilience Program: Horsemanship

Duration: 10 Sessions
Participants per Session: 10 Volunteers
Associated Costs: $1,160/Volunteer

Impact Report

Since2023

Thanks to you, our partners in TRUE LOVING-KINDNESS, the unit has already provided the following resources to hundreds of volunteers:

750+

Clinical Therapy Hours

Funded private, professional clinical care for volunteers requiring deep therapeutic intervention with trauma specialists.

Intensive Retreats

Professionally led two-day workshops providing a protected, neutral environment to process severe trauma and acquire resilience tools.

100+

Group Sessions

Clinical processing groups and experiential therapy integrating hands-on modalities: equine therapy, carpentry, therapeutic cooking, and agriculture.

Family Unit Stabilization

Dedicated seminars for hundreds of volunteers and their spouses, providing tools to navigate the impact of secondary trauma on the home and family dynamic.

Physiological Resilience Tools

Specialized workshops utilizing diving and breathwork to master physiological regulation techniques for managing acute stress and anxiety.

Professional & Medical Collaboration

Direct access to mental health professionals for urgent interventions, alongside a comprehensive academic study tracking PTSD levels and recovery metrics.

This is just the beginning.

As you read these words, ZAKA volunteers are responding to one of thousands of annual calls for help - saveing lives and honoring lives lost in the most traumatic circumstances.

Please consider supporting continued personalized therapies, experiential renewals, family aid, and crisis tools.

Nurith Cohn's Story

DelayedTears

"I was working there almost two and a half months, collecting bodies, body parts, tissue, blood. We were working in the Kibutzes, we were working in the burned cars and the safe rooms."

"Everything I see is through a lens of the seventh of October."

"I'm always monitoring: is this affecting me, is my blood pressure going up, is my pulse going up... It took me five months before the first tears came."

"All of the people that I have been with in the south, they need a structure of help."

"This is the time where we need to help people. It's not going to go away."

— Nurith Cohn, ZAKA Volunteer

While listening, you can also review the current commitment appreciation tokens:

A choice to donate $1,000 or more is honored with:

Limited-Edition Medal

Iron-Swords ZAKA Edition Certificate of Authenticity & Quality

Size: 60mm / 1.97 inches Weight: 68-gram / 2.4 ounces Material: Silver plated zinc alloy Designer: Temple Coins Made in Israel using Israeli-sourced materials

A choice to donate $1,800 or more is honored with:

Limited-Edition Collection

Signed and Certified Israel-Post ZAKA Stamp Commemorative Remembrance Necklace: "Never Again. Never Forget." ZAKA Pin Souvenir Leaf and Folder

Edition of 800 Sets

Back a Volunteer

Individual Trauma Therapy

(24 Sessions)

Associated Costs: $2,560/Volunteer

monthy donation

$36 $72 $90 $108 $216 $

Fully backs a volunteer if kept active for 72 months

Eli Hazen's Story

AbsentHugs

"We've seen terrorist attacks and bus bombings over the past 20 years, but never anything of this magnitude..."

"We began working tirelessly for days upon days dealing with children murdered in front of their mothers and mothers murdered in front of their children."

"On the door of this sealed room, there was a note written years ago: bottled water, food, tuna fish, coloring books for the children. And at the bottom it said, 'a hug from Mommy.'"

"We found that mother killed in that home under that sign. There no longer will be any hugs for those children in that home. That's something that sticks with me."

"These scenes have taken a tremendous toll... Each one of us has memories that stick with him... We all need proper treatment."

— Eli Hazen, ZAKA Volunteer

The emotional toll on ZAKA volunteers is immense. The unprecedented scale of October 7th has elevated this toll, with over 30% battling PTSD.

ZAKA's PTSD recovery and resilience programs provide the specialized, expert care this trauma demands.

Your partnership enables this work and can make a significant difference in the well-being of volunteers.

Back a Volunteer

Individual VR-Enhanced Trauma Therapy

(4 Months, 1-2 Sessions/Week)

Associated Costs: $1,500/Volunteer

monthy donation

$36 $72 $90 $108 $216 $

Fully backs a volunteer if kept active for 42 months

Simcha Greiniman's Account

RavagedSanctuary

"Walking through one of the kibbutzim, we had signs on every house to make sure that we collect all the bodies and all the remains. A sign was two circles. Those circles meant there's a body, at least one, if not more."

"I slip on a puddle of blood. And in front of our eyes is something unbelievable, something you cannot imagine."

"An elderly person, a Holocaust survivor that was killed brutally without any machine guns, without any grenades, without any bullets. But with knives, hammers, axes."

"Think about what happens to a volunteer after responding to that scene; how much pain it brings..."

"We need to make sure that every volunteer is strong and healthy. The volunteer, and his family."

— Simcha Greiniman, ZAKA Volunteer

Workshops and activities, from resilience training to immersive therapy, are designed to help volunteers recover and continue their vital work.

Your donation will help fund these programs, to achieve the goals of building long-term resilience, ensuring mental recovery, and maintaining the strength of ZAKA’s volunteer community.

Back a Volunteer

Wilderness Recovery and Resilience Workshop: Metzoke Dragot

(2 Days)

Associated Costs: $680/Volunteer

one-time donation

$170 $340 $680 $

backs 25% for a volunteer

Valeria Dyksztejn's Account

BearingWitness

"…I don't need these pictures, I have everything in my mind."

"Together with three other volunteers, we took an ambulance to the Nova. We came to a place of death. Bodies everywhere."

"Entering the kibbutzim, you could see the evil way in which entire families were murdered."

— Valeria Dyksztejn, ZAKA Volunteer

Oz Avizov's Account

BeyondRoad 232

"On October seventh there was this cursed road, Road 232. It was impossible to drive on. The whole way we drove between victims' cars, dozens of them."

"For three months, we had to dismantle what was required, cleaned, and ensured a full, dignified burial. There was soft tissue splattered throughout vehicles. There was blood everywhere."

"When trauma floods, simple things become difficult."

"You slowly become exhausted. Your body runs out of strength and you don't understand why the body won't sleep. People get totally drained."

"We had workshops afterwhich we received calls from volunteers' wives that told us 'my husband has been renewed.' They were able to sleep again, to experience joy, to be happy."

— Oz Avizov, ZAKA's resilience unit commander

Please consider becoming a partner with a donation.

Your support will help volunteers and their families recover, build resilience, and continue their missions of True Loving-Kindness.

Thank you!