The maverick 'rabbi' Uzi Meshulam, who demanded in the 1990s that Israel investigate what has come to be known as “the kidnapping of the Yemenite children," died on Friday at the age of 60, Arutz Sheva reports. Israel subsequently held four commissions of inquiry into the scandal. Some children were never accounted for, although the idea of a government conspiracy has been dismissed.
Meshulam was brought to rest on Friday afternoon, before Shabbat, in his hometown in Yehud.
Meshulam had disseminated information which said
that between the years of 1948 and 1954, approximately 4,500 children of
immigrants of Mizrahi origins disappeared while in the hospital. Their
parents who came to visit them were told that their children had died
and were buried, raising some suspicion since in many cases the children
had been healthy, there were no death certificates,
and bodies were not presented. These facts had led many to believe that
the children had in fact been kidnapped and sold to be adopted.
Four different commissions
of inquiry have been set up in Israel to investigate the allegations
regarding the selling of the children over the years, but they concluded
that there had been no decisive evidence regarding the fate of the
children in some cases, while in others there was no doubt that the
children had died.
Meshulam, who had for many years gathered evidence
regarding disappearance of the Yemenite children, in 1994 locked himself
along with his followers in a home in Yehud. Police forces and snipers
surrounded the house, and several weeks later, they stormed it,
arresting 11 of Meshulam’s officers and killing one, 19 year-old Shlomo
Asulin.
Meshulam’s followers were accused of a number of
offenses: conspiracy to commit a crime, obstructing justice, attempted
aggravated assault, threats, endangering human life willfully and
unlawfully production of weapons. They were sentenced to prison terms of
between 15 months and five years. Meshulam himself was convicted of
instructing his followers to throw firebombs at police and of
obstruction of justice. He was sentenced to eight years, but was
acquitted of one of the offenses and the sentence was reduced to six and
a half years, out of which he served five after then-President Ezer
Weizman deducted seven months from his sentence.
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