Terror, corpse symbolism, and taboo violation: the 'Haredi Disaster Victim Identification Team in Israel' (Zaka)

Anthropologists dealing with death have pointed to a process of privatization, bureaucratization, and secularization of death in the age of 'high modernity'. In this article I argue that the exploration of death within the framework of modern terrorism, a form of death that is becoming inc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 2006-12, Vol.12 (4), p.837-858
Main Author:	Stadler, Nurit
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Anthropologists Anthropology of religion Anthropology of the body Body Communities Community Dead Death Death Rituals Deaths Demographic aspects Disaster victims Disasters Ethnology Family. Family relations Fear Field study Field work Human remains Israel Judaism Life cycle an individual status Management Old age. Death Public Sphere Religion Social Anthropology Social structure and social relations Soul Symbolism Taboo Taboos Terrorism Torah Transgression Victims Volunteerism
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Summary:	Anthropologists dealing with death have pointed to a process of privatization, bureaucratization, and secularization of death in the age of 'high modernity'. In this article I argue that the exploration of death within the framework of modern terrorism, a form of death that is becoming increasingly common, reveals new expressions and interpretations of death that are public and are represented by a complex religious repertoire of images and practices. Based on a field study that combines in-depth interviews, observations, films, and textual analyses, this article examines how volunteers from the 'Zaka' organization (the Jewish ultra-Orthodox team for identification of victims of disaster in Israel) explain their deathwork during terror attacks. Generally we would expect that this community's religious norms, which prevent them from involvement with the larger society, would also prevent members from participation in cases of death in the public sphere. Nevertheless, Zaka's tasks involve collecting, matching, and recomposing pieces of human flesh and blood in the public arena. Through these new practices, Zaka volunteers shape new narratives of public death, which are based on two central premises: a discourse of 'corpse symbolism' and a narrative of taboo desecration. This language reinforces and revives Haredis' own religious expressions during terror, allowing them to monopolize the death experience and the handling of dead bodies, introduce sacred meanings of corpses and death into the public sphere, and create their new position as specialists and deathworkers. / Les anthropologues qui s'intéressent à la mort ont signalé un processus de privatisation, de bureaucratisation et de sécularisation de celle-ci à notre époque « ultramoderne ». L'auteur s'attache ici à une exploration de la mort survenant lors d'attentats terroristes (un mode de décès de plus en plus fréquent) et y trouve de nouvelles expressions et interprétations, publiques et figurées par un répertoire complexe d'images et de pratiques religieuses. À partir d'une étude de terrain associant entretiens en profondeur, observations, films et analyses de textes, l'article examine la manière dont les membres de l'organisation « Zaka » (des Juifs ultra-orthodoxes bénévoles, qui se consacrent à l'identification des victimes de catastrophes en Israël) expliquent leur travail de thanatopraxie lors des attentats terroristes. On pourrait s'attendre à ce que les normes religieuses de cette communauté, q
ISSN:	1359-0987 1467-9655