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| ZAKA in action (from their website) |
A young woman from an ultra-Orthodox family in financial straits has accused Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, the founder of the ZAKA emergency response organization, of sexually assaulting her in 2011. This, however, is just one of many such accusations against a man who this year has won an Israel Prize, a Ha’aretz investigation reveals…
I am not going to repeat the gory details of sex abuse he has been accused of. Other than to say that they are among the worst I have ever heard. Decades of repeated abuse against women, young boys and young girls.
Yehuda Meshi-Zahav was a real hero to me. A Charedi Jew from Meah Shearim whose constant acts of Chesed through ZAKA the organization he founded and leads - was a constant source of Kiddush HaShem. A selfless Jew who dedicated his life to the Jewish people during some of the worst moments of their lives.
ZAKA is an all volunteer organization consisting primarily of Charedi Jews whose original mission was to collect body parts of people who were murdered after suicide bombers blew themselves up in crowded conditions. Like on a busload full of people. The bombs were so powerful that body parts flew off the victims and were strewn all along the area of the explosion. ZAKA volunteers collected them all and returned them to the victims’ families for proper burial.
Whenever the electronic media reported a suicide bombing, the images always included ZAKA volunteers. As devastating as these suicide bombings were to their family, friends, and the entirety of the Jewish people, ZAKA’s presence was nevertheless a Kiddush HaShem that the Jewish people (especially observant Jews of all stripes) could be proud of.
Today ZAKA has expanded to 3000 volunteers whose mission now includes search and rescue, accident prevention, and assistance in international disasters.
When it was recently announced that Meshi-Zahav was this years winner of the coveted Israel Prize, I thought – no brainer. He always seemed to be on the right side of any issue concerning the religious public. For example, when the COVID pandemic was at one of its most deadly periods in Israel his calls for virus vigilance from the Charedi community was an uphill battle. When his mother died of the disease he rightly blamed his Charedi leadership for their inadequate response… saying that these rabbis had ‘blood on their hands’.
But all that goes away now that he has been exposed as a serial sex abuser in ways too terrible to imagine.
I have said this before: It almost seems like being a hero at this level makes monsters out of so many of them. Ordinary people that do extraordinary things for the good - will sometimes do extraordinary things for the bad. These are people that have courage and determination to succeed. But those attributes can be used both ways.
The true heroes of the world are the selfless individuals that will use them only for good. The truly evil are the sociopaths of the world that will use them only for bad. But when someone uses those attributes for both good and bad, it makes them twice as dangerous. Innocent victims that come to admire their good deeds become easy prey for these monsters. That is how they can get away with it for so long. As did Meshi-Zahav.
As would be expected, Meshi-Zahav denies everything. There are those who might say that he should be given the benefit of the doubt – adding that justice demands that he be considered innocent until proven guilty.
This might be true in a court of law. But in the court of public opinion where there are now so many accusations of abuse perpetrated over many years... and where he supposedly even bragged about it to his community where this was an open secret, I tend to doubt his protestations of innocence.
Some might argue that I should consider the source of this news when discussing his guilt. After all it is no secret that Ha’aretz is one of the most anti Charedi publications in Israel.
That may be true. But that doesn’t mean we should not believe an investigative report that includes 6 victims now telling their story. Unless you are a conspiracy theorist, I don’t see how anyone can read a story like this and not believe any of the accusations. (And yet there is still a part of me that hopes that none of this is true.)
It pains me greatly to see one of my heroes having such feet of clay. Like I said, I am shocked by all of this. Perhaps I shouldn’t be as I recently indicated. Sadly Meshi-Zahav is just another in a long line of religious Jews with clay feet. A real life Jekyll and Hyde.
There is a phrase made popular by a comic book hero but originated conceptually during the French Revolution. ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ But for some people the opposite happens. They use that power for their own self gratification believing that their hero status will protect them against accusations of wrongdoing. Clearly that is no longer true, if it ever was.
At the end of the day, these people are sociopaths. Even if they seemed to have noble intentions when they began their noble causes, their true character came out as soon as they felt invincible enough via their reputation as heroes.
I have no clue how to prevent this from happening again. But if past is prologue, it surely will. God help us all.