COMMUNITY

Yehuda Meshi-Zahav

Founder and chairman, ZAKA Search and Rescue

Yehuda Meshi-Zahav is the founder and chairman of ZAKA Search and Rescue, a UN-recognized international humanitarian volunteer organization with nearly 4,000 volunteers in Israel and around the world. Members of ZAKA, most of whom are Orthodox Jews, assist ambulance crews, aid in the identification of the victims of  terrorism, road accidents and other disasters, and where necessary gather body parts and spilled blood for proper burial. ZAKA has also participated in international rescue and recovery operations, for example in Mumbai, India following the multiple terrorist attacks, including a Chabad Jewish center, in November 2008, and in Haiti following the devastating earthquake in 2010. While leading ZAKA training in South Africa in 2017, Meshi-Zahav was attacked by a lioness, but managed to escape unharmed. He later joked that he had been singing a Hebrew song about lions at the time that was not appreciated by the lioness. (Photo: Ben Kelmer / Nimrod Saunders.)