Tel-Chai Nation

Israel HaYom spoke with a representative of the Haredi medical movement co-founded by Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, who says they suspected something was wrong with the man, and now, the sex offense allegations against him have made a very negative impact on the staffers:

A senior ZAKA official told Israel Hayom that the emergency medical response organization has "washed its hands" of its disgraced co-founder, who stepped down once the lurid scandal became public, saying that "given the accusations against him, it's very hard to remember the good that he's done. "We always saw him with women and suspected that he was a deviant, but we never suspected he was a pedophile or a rapist," the official said. "In retrospect, this [the allegations] explains a lot of things we saw over the years."

When Israel National News followed up on this report, quite likely from the Hebrew language edition, they translated the interviewee's words as suspecting Meshi-Zahav was a "real pervert", which would describe the incidents better than just "deviant".

"The volunteers especially feel very hurt," he continued. "They are the ones doing the work, but now they feel ashamed to be associated with ZAKA. Yehuda has hurt thousands of volunteers. People see ZAKA vehicles and think of if [the organization] as something awful," he said.

See, this is the worst part of the whole case: the employees and staffers suffer very much from what emerges about the co-founder, and will make it difficult going forward, if not impossible, to clear away the stench Meshi-Zahav's left behind from his past crimes. What should be done? Should they form a new outfit based on careful vetting of members, starting from the top brass down to the rank-and-file employee? It's a good question. For now, let's hope justice can be done for the victims.

Labels: haredi corruption, Israel, misogyny, Moonbattery, sexual violence