JNS
Rabbi Bentzi Mann had never seen a dead body in his life before Oct. 8. Within 15 minutes of his arrival at the IDF's Shura Base, he found himself holding one, covered in blood.
Standing in the middle of the Israel Defense Forces' Shura Base, the home of the IDF Rabbinate, Sgt. (res.) Rabbi Bentzi Mann humbly recounted the ways in which he had fulfilled a role that many would consider to be impossible.
Mann has played a critical role in the rabbinate’s efforts to manage the deluge of bodies that swept into the base in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 mass murder attack. He has seen things that are difficult to fathom.
In his civilian life, Mann is the director of the Mizrachi Movement's Schools Department. He is the son of immigrants from the United States.
He recalled how Israeli President Isaac Herzog, upon hearing that he was to visit Shura, remarked, “I heard the place is the gate to hell.”
“I could really understand and relate to why President Herzog said that. He wasn’t the only one who said it,” said Mann.
However, Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, “responded to him beautifully,” said Mann, turning a moment of despair into one of profound faith. “He quoted a pasuk, a verse from Parashat Vayetze. The pasuk goes as follows: This is nothing but the house of God. And these are the gates to heaven.”
The 35-year-old father of five recounted the events of that fateful day. “It starts at 6:30 in the morning, where I wake up not to the sound of sirens, but to the sound of neighbors banging on the door,” he said. Mann and his family, along with other residents of their building, spent two and a half hours in its communal shelter.
Despite the chaos, Mann never considered turning on his phone, even though, as an Orthodox Jew, he knew that saving lives overrides Shabbat prohibitions. “But it just didn’t cross my mind for one single second,” he said.
Mann’s military service had never involved combat. Due to his medical profile, he served in the IDF Rabbinate, where his duties were far removed from the battlefield. His reserve duty consisted of “Operation Pesach,” preparing kitchens for Passover. He had no expectations of being called to the front, let alone playing a critical national role during a war. “When the war broke, I thought I was completely useless, [that I] unfortunately wouldn’t be able to help in anything. I had no training, no nothing,” he said.
The forensic center in the Shura military base near Ramle, where 1,500 bodies have arrived since Hamas's Oct. 7 attack on Israel, Oct. 13, 2023. Photo by Nati Shohat/Flash90.
But early on Oct. 8, everything changed. Mann received a text message asking him to report to Shura, a place he knew little about. He packed his bags, said goodbye to his wife and children and headed out. On the way, a colleague asked for his name, so he could pray for him. “And I send him my name, but to myself, I’m like, ‘What are you praying for? I’m not going to Gaza. I’m not going to Lebanon. Like, it’s literally 10 minutes from my house. What are you praying for?’” he said.
It wasn’t until he arrived at Shura that Mann realized the true nature of his assignment. The base had become a center for handling the casualties from Hamas’s slaughter in the western Negev, both soldiers and civilians. Since that day, it has processed no fewer than 1,500 bodies, and countless grieving families.
“When we pray for someone’s health, we pray for refuat haguf, physical health, but we also pray for refuat hanafesh, mental health. And that’s the story of this base,” said Mann.
Mann had never seen a dead body in his life before Oct. 8. Within 15 minutes of his arrival, he found himself holding one, covered in blood. The shock was profound, yet he persevered, driven by the prayers and faith of Jews from around the world.
But the work took its toll. “I had a friend who was fine until he had a stain of blood, like blood dripped on him. He just had a panic attack, took off his uniform, and never came back. I had a friend who was fine until he opens the body bag. Inside is a nine-year-old girl. He has a nine-year-old daughter at home. He just closed the bag, ran out of the building, and never came back,” Mann recalled.
The Shura Base was originally intended only for soldiers, with civilians usually being taken to Israel’s National Center of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir. However, the overwhelming number of casualties on Oct. 7 forced authorities to use Shura for civilians as well. “About a third of this building is offered for the civilians to be brought here,” Mann explained. “This becomes a place where every single one of the people killed on Oct. 7 is brought to.”
"When you see a refrigerated, big refrigerated chocolate-milk truck, what crosses your mind? To me, when I see a chocolate-milk truck... I can no longer drink chocolate milk," he said. "Because it's a truck that's coming through this open space, reversing with that loud sound ... and I jump on the ramp, and I open the doors of the truck, and I'm not exaggerating—blood comes spilling out. And the whole entire truck is packed with bodies," said Mann, struggling with the memory.
“And there's another truck, and another truck. We had ... at least six trucks. And in the containers, we had over 20 containers, each container could hold up to 30 bodies."
Mann vividly describes the experience of seeing the first Kaddish recited for fallen soldiers.
“There are times where we want to go into the Shura Base’s farewell room, where families come [to spend their last moments with the bodies of their loved ones], and sometimes we’ll see a candle there, a lit candle, and that indicates a fact that there was a family who was just there hours before,” he said.
The low-lit room, with intricate walls, is a space like no other. It contains a four-walled bench surrounding a low surface for the body, enabling families to sit around their loved one.
The message from Mann was clear. The base, in all its inconceivable sorrow, also has a sacred duty. “This entrance, this gate, this building, is not the gate to hell. These are the gates to heaven. These are the gates to the Garden of Eden,” he said, with tears in his eyes.
Mann’s role at Shura goes beyond the physical handling of the fallen. It involves a deep spiritual responsibility, one that he never anticipated but has embraced fully.
“People refer to the Chevra Kadisha’s [Burial Society] work as true kindness because the person who passed away can’t return a favor; he’s now dead. But when it comes to IDF soldiers, that’s not chesed [kindness]. That’s gratitude. They literally lost their lives protecting all of us. The least I could do is to do that work,” said Mann with quiet determination.
Capt. Rabbi Benjamin Zimmerman from the Halachah Branch of the IDF Rabbinate explained that the rabbinate provides for soldiers in utterly unique ways.
Beyond dealing with the deceased, the rabbinate is deeply involved with soldiers' spiritual and emotional well-being, especially in the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks, he said.
One of the central tenets guiding the IDF Rabbinate’s approach is the belief that every soldier is part of a larger family. This familial bond is not just metaphorical but deeply ingrained in the culture of the IDF, he added. "We view all the soldiers as family," Zimmerman emphasized, linking this sense to Israel’s commitment to never leave a soldier behind, alive or deceased.
This dedication, he added, is exemplified by the IDF's relentless efforts to bring back soldiers for burial, even years after their deaths.
"If a soldier goes out to battle knowing that we will do our utmost to bring them back alive, but if that's not possible, we will never stop short of bringing them back to burial, they fight differently," said Zimmerman. "The Israeli army never gives up on a soldier. It has search parties, and [has] entire units ... [dedicated to] searching for soldiers from the War of Independence. Just to be able to know where they're buried and give them the proper honor.”
This unwavering commitment is rooted in Jewish tradition, which views every individual as inherently holy, Zimmerman explained. He drew on the Talmud, explaining that when someone passes away, they are likened to a Torah scroll that has been burned—a symbol of profound loss and sacredness.
"Every individual is a walking Torah scroll. When they pass away, they’re a fallen Torah scroll, and therefore they deserve honor," he said.
Zimmerman took journalists through the base’s storage center, containing 400 Torah scrolls, many considered invalid due to damage accumulated over the years.
"This is what you could call the largest holy ark [aron hakodesh] in the world," he remarked.
Torah scrolls are deeply integrated into the life of IDF soldiers, particularly during times of war, he added. He emphasized the immense value many soldiers place on having a Torah scroll with them on the battlefield, and the many instances of units asking to take scrolls into Gaza with them. "It’s something that’s heavy, something you have to protect. You’re going into Gaza, you have something else to protect. But for them, the perspective is the opposite. More than we have to protect the Torah scroll, the Torah scroll will protect us," he said.
The desire for Torah scrolls among soldiers is so strong that the IDF often does not have enough to meet the demand, especially during intense military operations, he added.
Zimmerman also touched on the history and significance of some of the stored scrolls, many of which have been through their own historical "battles." He described how Torah scrolls, some of which were saved from the Holocaust and other tragedies, continue to serve as a testament to the resilience and survival of the Jewish people. "These Torah scrolls tell a story," Zimmerman said, "and that story helps you understand why so many soldiers, even those who are not religious, feel a deep connection to them."
One particularly poignant scroll was dedicated by Edward Mosberg, a Holocaust survivor from Krakow, Poland, who lost his entire family to the Nazi genocide. Mosberg saved Torah scrolls that survived the Holocaust, restoring them and bringing them to various communities. However, the most important scroll he dedicated was given to the IDF to be read specifically on Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), said Zimmerman.
The scroll was adorned with the names of concentration camps and ghettos, symbolizing the Jewish people's survival and resilience. "When you take this Torah scroll," Zimmerman quoted Mosberg as saying, "you will be announcing to the world that you might be able to kill us as individuals, but you cannot kill us as a nation."
A page from a Torah scroll found in a German church’s cellar survived an attempt to erase Jewish history. This page just happened to contain the section known as Parshat Zachor, which commands Jews to remember the attacks by the nation of Amalek, the first people to attack the Israelites with the intention of wiping them out.
Zimmerman explained the scroll’s significance: "This page survived and serves as a reminder that nations will rise up against the Jewish people, but we will emerge victorious at the end."
