Zaka - the volunteer organization that has become all-too famous over the past months with the \"sacred work\" that it performs following terrorist attacks [collecting body parts and the like] - carries out good deeds on behalf of the living as well, and it did so this past Friday afternoon. JerusalemCom News Service reports that an Air Canada plane had been delayed on its way to Israel, and the 20 religiously observant families aboard were in a panic at the prospect of arriving at Ben-Gurion International Airport only minutes before the onset of the Sabbath. In light of the Halakhic [Jewish legal] ban on motorized travel on the Sabbath, it appeared that they would be forced to spend the holy day in the airport, without even basic Sabbath supplies. Airport Rabbi Nissim Elmaliach, who learned of the situation via concerned relatives in North America, immediately notified a Zaka volunteer who lived in the area, Eliezer Schulman, who then took charge of the operation.
Schulman, together with other Zaka volunteers, arranged quickly for the collection of mattresses, blankets, baby food, diapers, and hot meals for the entire group. They prepared special sections of the airport for the religious families to spend the Sabbath - and even arranged for volunteers to remain there for the onset of the Sabbath in order to help with the preparations. These volunteers agreed to do so, knowing full well that they would have to walk to their homes, an hour or two away. At the same time, efforts were being made to bring the plane in faster, and in fact the plane arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule - 30 minutes before the onset of Shabbat. This gave the Zaka men just enough time to activate plan B, and they drove the panicky families to nearby Kfar Chabad. The supplies they had amassed did not go to waste, and were used to supplement that which Kfar Chabad\'s last-minute host families were able to provide. \"Zaka really did it all,\" Rabbi Elmaliach said. \"They thought of everything, and made sure it was ready on time.\"