The Chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi David Lau, issued a special ruling in Jewish Las (Halacha) permitting the search and rescue operations of the IDF Home Front Command and United Hatzalah Rescue teams to continue their rescue work unabated in Turkey if lives could be saved. 

The ruling which came on Thursday made special mention of the work being done by both teams in order to save the lives of those affected by the tragic earthquake in Turkey that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. In spite of the cold temperatures and people having been trapped under the rubble for four days, the Israeli delegation has managed to find and extricate from the rubble 17 people so far whose lives have been saved by the rescue efforts and medical intervention that has been provided. 

President and Founder of United Hatzalah Eli Beer said: “The goal of our mission to Turkey is to help people, plain and simple. We didn’t go because they are Jewish, we went because we are Jewish. This is what being Jewish means, it means finding ways to help people in accordance with Jewish Law. One of the highest values in Jewish law is the sanctity of life. The Talmud tells us that saving one life is like saving an entire world. Our teams have helped save 17 worlds. We hope we will still save some more.”