JERUSALEM (AP) — The head of Israel’s renowned ZAKA rescue service stepped down from his post on Friday and relinquished a prestigious national prize amid sexual assault allegations dating back to the 1980s.
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Israeli media said police opened an investigation.
In a statement, Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, 61, denied the allegations detailed by the Haaretz daily a day earlier. The newspaper said it had interviewed six accusers and obtained evidence of sexual assault and exploitation going back decades, including of teenagers and younger children.
The allegations surfaced just days after Meshi-Zahav was awarded the nation’s most prestigious honor, the Israel Prize, for his work in ZAKA, the search and rescue organization he co-founded.
The organization, drawing from thousands of volunteers, became internationally known in the 1990s when it responded to a wave of attacks by Palestinian militants.
In a letter addressed to ZAKA volunteers and released Friday, Meshi-Zahav rejected the allegations against him. He said that “these stories are unfounded, gossip and the settling of scores against me.”
He said he was temporarily stepping down from his post because of concern over the “damage that may be caused as a result to this important organization.” He also said he was also relinquishing the Israel Prize.
I don’t believe a word about these baseless claims, albeit I believe every single such claim against cuomo.
Sick world. They guy has “ allegations“ from over 3 decades ago.
Even though the guy has done good since then.
Unbelievable if these are true. Sick sick sick man
I sort of know him, he is a very tough guy and probably fired many people and other people he gave h$ll, so there are many people who hate him. So this is one way to get back at him.
One Rosh Yeshiva I heard of was also a very tough guy. He was tough on discipline. So the boys got together and said he was touching them in their private parts. No one knew who was right, but the RY had to quit and some one else not so tough came in to take his place.
Moral: there aren’t too many morals out their if they hate you.
These claims unfortunately don’t just come from nowhere.
As a dedicated public servant for decades , he deserves the benefit of the doubt. At the same time 6 accusers don’t come from nowhere ,Let’s say that he was 40 years younger, in a position of power, and…some low level offences were committed (low level is still wrong ) but the punishment needs to be in line with the avira and current threat. where do we draw the line ?
The one thing to learn from this story, a chioini will always hate a Hareidi, no matter how self hating he might be, M.Z. Would do whatever in his power to insult, belittle, degrade the Jews of Israel for the past 20 years, all while wearing full Hasidic garb,and boasting about closing the gap, but nobody trusts a traitor, and when they felt they got enough of him, they decided to throw him to the wolves.
He’s unfortunately a troubled soul, he tends to be very extreme on anything he does, after doing some terror work for neturei karte, he become a full fledged Zionist and hareidi hater,