Yehuda Meshi Zahav

In March 2021, following sexual misconduct allegations made against him for abusing men, women, and children, Meshi Zahav attempted to take his own life. He remained in a coma for over a year until he died on 29 June 2022.

Avraham Zvi Meshi Zahav was born to writer Menachem Saamson Mendel and Sara Zissel, daughter of Rabbi Yosef Scheinberger [he], the secretary of the Edah HaChareidis rabbinical court. He grew up in the Mea Shearim neighbourhood in Jerusalem, an 11th generation family living in Jerusalem. He studied in the Talmud Torah "Etz Chaim", and in the yeshivas "Tiferet Yisrael", "Ohel Yaakov" and "Torah Ore". Meshi Zahav resided in Givat Ze'ev and was married to Batsheva, with whom he had seven children. Between late 2020 and early 2021, Meshi Zahav lost his brother, who died of a serious illness, his father, and his mother, who died of covid. Following allegations of sexual abuse, and the initiation of a police investigation in March 2021, Meshi-Zahav attempted suicide in April 2021 and remained in a coma until he died on 29 June 2022.

Meshi-Zahav was a member of committees to promote the recruitment of Haredi Jews to the IDF and their integration into the labor market. He also participated in the public committee established by Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi in December 2019 to examine the forgery of the number of Haredim who have enlisted in the IDF in recent years.

In 2018, he founded with Carmit Naimi and another "Eshet Lapidot" organization, which is a women's organization in several countries around the world that deals with community assistance. The organisation organizes resuscitation courses for women, works to care for neighbors in need, supports Haredi soldiers who are unable to return home, and more.

In the early 2010s an allegation of male child sexual abuse by Yehuda Meshi Zahav was made to the police,who soon closed their investigation; everywhere his name was mentioned "the door was shut". But after it was reported that Zahav had won the Israel Prize in 2021, a newspaper published accusations that he had been using his status and power to assault women and children since the 1980s. After a new police investigation was started he tried to kill himself, ending up in a coma, and dying a year later.

In 2003, he lit, as one of the founders of ZAKA, a beacon at the torch lighting ceremony on Mount Herzl. He was criticized by people in the Haredi community for this, in particular for declaring the ceremony "the glory of the State of Israel."

During the attack on bus line 405 in 1990, Meshi Zahav arrived with other yeshiva boys to provide first aid to the victims. On his way home, he concluded that if in the enemy's view everyone is equal, so too for him. In the 1990s, he arrived at the scenes of suicide bombing attacks in Israel, among other things, and treated the bodies of those killed. As a result, ZAKA (Disaster Victim Identification) was founded. In his capacity as Chairman of ZAKA, he worked for inter-religious and secular reconciliation.

Avraham Zvi Yehuda Meshi Zahav (19 July 1959 - 29 June 2022) was an Israeli social activist, a member of the Haredi Jewish community, and founder and chairman of ZAKA.