Ultra-Orthodox leader implicated in decades of sexual abuse dies
62-year-old Yehuda Meshi-Zahav attempted suicide over a year ago after a Haaretz investigation revealed that he had taken advantage of his status and power in the ultra-Orthodox community to assault teenagers and younger children

Yehuda Meshi-Zahav at a conference in Jerusalem, March 2021. Photo by Gil Cohen-Magen
This article originally appeared on Haaretz, and was reprinted here with permission. Sign up here to get Haaretz’s free Daily Brief newsletter delivered to your inbox.
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the disgraced founder of the Zaka Search and Rescue Organization who had been under investigation for decades of sexual offenses against girls, boys and women, has died on Wednesday.
Meshi-Zahav, 62, attempted suicide in April of last year after a Haaretz investigation provided evidence that he had taken advantage of his status and power since the 1980s to assault teenagers and younger children in the ultra-Orthodox community.
After the report, police announced that they would open a formal investigation into Meshi-Zahav, and a series of further accusations of rape and sexual exploitation against him surfaced. The first official complaints were filed against him in March of last year.
The Herzog Medical Center in Jerusalem, where Meshi-Zahav had been hospitalized, said his condition deteriorated over the past days. He will be laid to rest in Jerusalem later on Wednesday.
According to the initial investigation, which was followed by a televised report on his alleged abuse by Israel’s Channel 12, many Meshi-Zahav associates knew about his actions but did not tell anyone or report him to the police.
Law enforcement sources, for their part, said police did not investigate information it had about the Meshi-Zahav allegations for years.
Following the allegations, Meshi-Zahav announced that he would be relinquishing the esteemed Israel Prize, which he was set to be awarded, and stepping down from his role at Zaka.
His close friend and neighbor, Rabbi Aharon Boymil, said Meshi-Zahav “did not deny everything” in response to the testimonies.
Meshi-Zahav founded Zaka (the name is a Hebrew acronym for “disaster victims’ identification”) in 1989. The organization has thousands of volunteers throughout the country and has become a crucial element in the country’s emergency response operations, both in Israel and abroad.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
2X match on all Passover gifts!
Most Popular
- 1
News A Jewish Republican and Muslim Democrat are suddenly in a tight race for a special seat in Congress
- 2
Fast Forward The NCAA men’s Final Four has 3 Jewish coaches
- 3
Film & TV What Gal Gadot has said about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- 4
Fast Forward Cory Booker proclaims, ‘Hineni’ — I am here — 19 hours into anti-Trump Senate speech
In Case You Missed It
-
News Who would protect New York Jews better? Cuomo and Lander trade attacks on the campaign trail
-
News Rabbis revolt over LGBTQ+ club, exposing fight over queer acceptance at Yeshiva University
-
Opinion In Qatargate fiasco, Netanyahu’s ‘witch hunt’ narrative takes cues from Trump
-
Yiddish די הגדה ווי אַ לעבעדיקער דענקמאָל פֿון אַשכּנזישער פּאָעזיעThe Haggadah as a living monument to Ashkenazi poetry
אַמאָל זענען די פּייטנים, מיסטישע דיכטער־וויזיאָנערן, געווען אויבן־אָן בײַ די פֿראַנצויזישע און דײַטשישע ייִדן.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.