![\"Israeli](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/702876.jpeg\"\/)
Israeli singer Shay-Li Atari Wiener, who recently revealed she was raped several years ago, protests alongside supporters outside a court hearing of her alleged rapist in Tel Aviv, January 21, 2026. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\nMusician Yuval Vilner, 38, was named on Sunday as the suspect in cases involving alleged sexual offenses against Shay-Lee Atary and Naama Shahar.<\/p>\n
The Tel Aviv Magistrate\u2019s Court permitted his name to be publicized following a legal back-and-forth that reached the Supreme Court and centered on the evidentiary threshold required to support claims that publication could endanger a suspect\u2019s life.<\/p>\n
Vilner, who has not been indicted, was also released Sunday from house arrest under restrictive conditions, including a ban on contacting both women and a ban on leaving Israel.<\/p>\n
In March, the court had temporarily barred publication of his name, holding off on disclosure pending further arguments over whether a psychiatric opinion was required regarding claims that publication could trigger a suicidal act.<\/p>\n
Vilner previously studied at the Rimon School of Music and later taught there.<\/p>\n
Israeli singer Shay-Li Atari Wiener, who recently revealed she was raped several years ago, protests alongside supporters outside a court hearing of her alleged rapist in Tel Aviv, January 21, 2026. (credit: AVSHALOM SASSONI\/FLASH90)<\/p>\n
On Monday, Vilner\u2019s lawyer told the court that he was withdrawing the suicide-risk claim and agreed that his client\u2019s name could be published, but asked that the lifting of the gag order be postponed by two weeks.<\/p>\n
Atary, Shahar, and the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, which represents and has accompanied them, opposed the delay. The publication date was ultimately set for Sunday.<\/p>\n
Vilner\u2019s attorney had argued in March that publication before any indictment had been filed would cause irreversible harm. He warned that in the digital era, public exposure would amount to the permanent destruction of his client\u2019s life. Vilner himself told the court that friends had distanced themselves from him and that he had lost his job, saying publication would \u201ccollapse his world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Atary, who was present at that hearing, sharply criticized that argument. Outside the courtroom, she said she wanted to believe justice would be done, and rejected the idea that a suspect could avoid exposure by raising claims about his mental state when his name was about to be published. She said she herself bears scars from five suicide attempts, and questioned how the system could now give decisive weight to the suspect\u2019s current distress.<\/p>\n
\u201cFifteen years, I did not have the basic right to say the name Yuval Vilner out loud,\u201d Atary said after the gag order was lifted. \u201cNot in an interview, not in a post, not even in front of family members or people close to me. While he continued his life with power, money and respect, I was the one living as if his name was explosive material, waiting to blow up my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is something sick in a reality in which rape suspects walk free, and victims are the ones required to be silent and careful with every word, as if they were criminals,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is the moment when people stop demanding that I pay with my life so that the reputation of the person who brutally raped me remains clean.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vilner\u2019s lawyer, Moshe Weiss, said in response that his client \u201cwill not be tried on social media and will not be convicted in headlines.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe is a person, like any person,\u201d Weiss said. \u201cHe has no status, power, or influence. The monster you were told about never existed. The evidence speaks for itself, and when you see it, you will understand on your own: There is only one truth, and it will come to light.\u201d<\/p>\n
Attorney Hila Neubach, legal director of the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel, said after the order was lifted that \u201cno victim should have to fight for months in the legal system while the suspect misleads both her and the courts, presenting false claims as if his life is in danger, while he is already giving interviews to the media and trying to portray himself as the victim in the story.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will continue to advance our bill on the matter so that victims will be entitled to know when suspects seek gag orders, and will be able to state their position from the beginning,\u201d Neubach added. \u201cNo legal decision concerning their case should be made without their knowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shahar also spoke last week in an interview with KAN Reshet Bet about the toll of the fight to publicize Vilner\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese weeks that I went through – this is something that destroys your soul. It feels like poison,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd what they say about it ruining his life – what do you think? That our souls are not destroyed?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA person\u2019s name, in the end, is the real prison,\u201d Shahar added. \u201cI had faith that this would create an echo that would eventually, eventually, eventually reach the court.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said that, in her view, \u201che never thought about what he did, he was only afraid of his name being published.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe principle of open justice does not make this easy for me,\u201d Shahar said, adding that she too had struggled with suicidal thoughts during the process.<\/p>\n
The case stems from a complaint Atary filed in 2022 over an alleged rape and fraud offense tied to an incident she says took place in April 2011 in the parking area beneath the Tel Aviv apartment where she then lived.<\/p>\n
Atary told the Knesset Committee on the Status of Women and Gender Equality earlier this year that she was violently raped on the asphalt in the residents\u2019 parking area beneath her shared apartment, and was later found unconscious outside her apartment door by her roommate.<\/p>\n
Before the alleged assault, she said, she had been working a shift at a neighborhood pub, where acquaintances from Rimon School of Music were sitting at the bar. She said the last thing she remembered before the violent moments of the alleged rape was raising a small glass with them and then leaving her drink near the group.<\/p>\n
She said she remembered nothing from that point until the moments of violence she said were \u201ccarved\u201d into her memory.<\/p>\n
Shahar came forward publicly about a month ago in a Facebook post, identifying herself as another complainant against Vilner.<\/p>\n
She wrote that in October 2022, she went on a date with \u201ca friend of friends,\u201d and ended it \u201cfoggy and weak\u201d in his bed, trying to resist and push him away while he used force.<\/p>\n
\u201cI woke up and fell asleep intermittently while he violated my body,\u201d Shahar wrote. \u201cI wish I did not have to write these ugly words on my beautiful page, but this is what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said the \u201csurprising drunkenness\u201d she experienced that night, after what she described as not much alcohol, and the vomiting she experienced the following day, later took on a different meaning for her.<\/p>\n
Shahar wrote that although she was \u201cacting bravely,\u201d she still felt fear, but said she refused to let that fear silence her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remind myself that it was exactly on that fear that he built that night,\u201d she wrote. \u201cYou silenced me for one night, not for an entire life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Musician Yuval Vilner, 38, was named on Sunday as the suspect in cases involving alleged sexual offenses against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[208584,737,42,43,102106,7509,11915,4320,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-445924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-association-of-rape-crisis-centers-in-israel-arcci","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-rape","tag-sexual-assault","tag-suicide","tag-supreme-court","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}