Talmidei yeshiva affiliated with Netivei Noam will be working in concert with Zaka search & rescue officials, training as the new handlers of dogs that will assist in such life-saving efforts. The announced move brings an end to another stereotype, that dogs and chareidim are not synonymous. It appears when the issue at hand is pikuach nefesh; anything towards achieving the goal is acceptable.
A modest ceremony launching the new unit was held in Yerushalayim on Sunday attended by Zaka officials, roshei yeshiva and of course, the young volunteers and their hounds.
The yeshiva was established by Rabbi Chaim Perkal in response to concerns for youths who simply did not fit the stereotype beis medrash setting, seeking to provide them a framework that would prevent them from ‘hitting the streets’. Baruch Hashem, he succeeded in a big way. The talmidim are engaged in torah study during the morning hours, and the remainder of the day is dedicated to teaching them a profession. Those students involved in the dog handler program have been trained by the IDF’s Homefront Command, and they have be taught how to handle their pets and to engage in search and rescue efforts, including on rough terrain.
During the ceremony, the young volunteers exhibited their newly-acquired skills as dog handlers.
(Yechiel Spira – YWN Israel)
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5 Responses
Even speaking stereotypically, dogs and Chareidim are not now (and they never were) “synonymous”.
Perhaps you meant to say that dogs and Charedim were sterotypically thought to be incompatible?
Now you can sponsor a ZAKA DOG!!!
Kol hakavod to Rabbi Perkal for his far-sighted attitude. Am Yisrael needs more like him.
Kudos to the boys – may all our troubled youth find the right framework to grow to be yirei shamayim and mentschen.
“another stereotype, that dogs and chareidim are not synonymous” – I don’t think I ever realized that the fact that dogs and chareidim are not synonymous is a “sterotype”… You seem to be competing with anti-Semites of the worst kind. For shame!
dogs and Chareidim are not now (and they never were) “synonymous”.
Of course not. Dogs grow their own fur. Chareidim buy fur hats made from other animals. Chareidim are Chareidim by choice – we have free will, a yetser tov and a yetser ra, etc. Dogs have no free will, they do what they are trained to do.
Perhaps they implied that Chareidim rarely work with animals for a living. However there have always been Chareidim farmers, so what’s the hiddush. Perhaps the author never leave Jerusalem and Bnei Brak (and very few people work with animals in big cities any more – you have to go back over a generation to find people keeping their own cows in the middle of the city)- in the US that hasn’t been the case for over a century.