Police will begin investigating the allegations of sexual assault and abuse by the co-founder and chairman of the ZAKA group for volunteers in emergencies on Sunday, but will have to find a case within the statute of limitations on Saturday, according to a television report.
In order to resolve a case against Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, police will focus on searching for complainants from the past decade, as cases outside the period are considered “cold cases”, reports Channel 12.
Meshi-Zahav was accused on Thursday of six people of sexual assault, rape and abuse in a report by the Haaretz, which states that there are probably many more cases.
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The allegations against Meshi-Zahav were made by men and women, some of whom were minors during the alleged events.
Police believe they could raise a case with one of the alleged victims, who says she was raped in a bed and breakfast in Jerusalem about ten years ago.
The woman, then in her twenties, at the time refused to file a complaint and the investigation was closed, and its existence was not disclosed. She now lives abroad and the police want to talk to her, Channel 12 reported.
Illustrative: A ZAKA minibus and volunteers at the scene of an accident in Beit Shemesh, 18 January 2018. (Yaakov Lederman / Flash90)
The remaining cases Haaretz reported date 20-40 years and are unacceptable under the statute of limitations.
Magen for Jewish Communities, a non-profit organization working to support survivors of sexual abuse, said it was aware of six cases, one of which was alleged rape, but that it had been used too long ago.
Meshi-Zahav is a prominent figure in the ultra-Orthodox community, with ZAKA a large part of Israel’s emergency response services abroad.
The original Haaretz report said that Meshi-Zahav used his status, power, money and even the organization he stands for to commit sexual assault on several occasions.
One alleged victim said he forcibly pulled her out and raped her after offering financial aid. The woman said that when Meshi-Zahav forced himself on her, he threatened: “If you talk, a ZAKA jeep will chase you.”
Another said that Meshi-Zahav had repeatedly abused him when he was a teenager, and only years later realized that he was his “escort, a prostitute in the full sense of the word”, he told Haaretz .
According to the report, several other women testified that he masturbated in front of them and touched them sexually.
Meshi-Zahav denied the allegations and told the newspaper the allegations were “unfounded” and would cause “irreparable damage” to his good name.
Of the six allegations reported, the earliest are from 1983 and the latest from 2011. The report added that many residents of several ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Jerusalem knew of Meshi-Zahav’s actions but said nothing or to the authorities have not been reported.
Earlier this month, Meshi-Zahav was declared a winner of the Israel Life Prize for his contributions to Israeli society. Education Minister Yoav Gallant has announced that the award goes to Meshi-Zahav for his decades of work at ZAKA.
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, co-founder of ZAKA, speaks at a conference in Jerusalem on March 7, 2021. (Yonatan Sindel / Flash90)
Meshi-Zahav announced on Friday that he will resign from his role in the organization and also relinquish the coveted Israel Prize.
Meshi-Zahav also made headlines in January when his parents both died of COVID-19 within days and less than a month after his younger brother died in another case.
He was an outspoken critic of some of the ultra-Orthodox leadership during the pandemic, as some prominent community figures downplayed the virus, including in an interview with The Times of Israel in October.
