It appeared to be a laid-back gathering of friends from a distance. One man was strumming a guitar as the others sung around a roaring bonfire in the Jerusalem Hills. They talked and laughed in between songs.
However, each Israeli volunteer rescue worker received a pen and a piece of paper after the song ended. Vered Atzmon Meshulam, a psychologist, then gave them instructions to write down a bad idea, something they wished to let go of, and toss it in the fire.
The two-day rehabilitation retreat for rescues from Zaka included singing, a bonfire, and the ritual of casting away a negative thought, which is typically done before the holy Jewish day of Yom Kippur.
The organisation is a unique Israeli rescue and recovery group tasked with collecting the remains of the dead. Every part, including blood, is collected for burial in accordance with Jewish religious law.
On October 7 last year, these men, mostly ultra-Orthodox Jews, were among the first responders to reach multiple sites in southern Israel attacked by Hamas militants.
The sheer size and brutality of the attack left them all with deep psychological scars. Although their lives continue as normal, they are unable to forget the death and carnage they witnessed that day and on those that followed.
“I was in a very bad mental state, couldn’t sleep at night, I was sleeping on the floor and had all kinds of strange symptoms,” Oz Avizov, who has volunteered with Zaka for more than 15 years, told AFP.
The 48-year-old, who spent several days in southern Israel after October 7, said it took him months to realise that his behaviour was abnormal.
On a visit to a psychologist he talked about his experiences last year, when he spent hours hiding in a sewage pipe as Hamas militants rampaged nearby.
It “helped me to wake up and come out of the stupor I was in,” he said.
It was then, Avizov realised, that other volunteers might also need help and so he pushed to create the organisation’s first therapy programme.
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