Yehudah Meshi Zahav

Yehudah Meshi Zahav was born in 1959 in Mea Shearim

Meshi Zahav was born on 19 July 1959 and grew up in the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem. His father, Menachem Mendel, was a writer, and his mother, Sara Zissel, was the daughter of Rabbi Yosef Scheinberger of the Edah HaChareidis. He studied at the Etz Chaim Talmud Torah and at several yeshivas, including Tiferet Yisrael.

As a young man he was among the leaders of Haredi protests against the State of Israel, and he said the police detained him many times. He edited the Haredi newspaper Ha'eda and published books on Haredi struggles with his brother Zvi.

He became chairman of ZAKA, a volunteer group that treated the bodies of victims at attack scenes, though accounts differ on who founded it. In 2003 he lit a beacon at the Mount Herzl ceremony and was criticized in the Haredi community. He founded the Israel Together movement during the Second Lebanon War and the Eshet Lapidot women's group in 2018.

In March 2021 reports described him sexually abusing many people over decades, and police opened an investigation. In April 2021 he attempted suicide and remained in a coma until his death on 29 June 2022.