This report includes graphic descriptions of sexual abuse. Some readers may find it disturbing.
Additional details into the organized sexual exploitation of minors carried out by singer Eyal Golan’s father, Daniel Biton, and other associates were revealed on Sunday in an interview given by Taisia Zamolowski, the main plaintiff in the case.
Zamolowski, now 29, revealed her identity for the first time in an interview she had with investigative journalists Omri Assenheim and Roni Kuban on KAN 11, shedding light on her interactions with Golan and his father.
She accused Golan, his father, and their associates of acts of sexual assault committed against underage girls as part of a scheme to force minors into sexual acts through their connection to the famous singer.
Zamolowski recalled how she first met Biton at a Tel Aviv nightclub when she was only 16 years old.
Biton contacted her the day after, calling her home’s landline. He invited her to one of his son’s concerts, and she accepted the invitation.
A few weeks later, Biton contacted Zamolowski, who celebrated turning 17 just a few days prior, again.
“We’re going to celebrate,” Zamolowski quoted Biton as saying on the phone minutes before he arrived at her doorstep to drive her to a nightclub.
However, according to Zamolowski, Biton did not drive her to the club. When confronted by Zamolowski as to where they were going, Biton said it was a “surprise.”
The surprise, she told KAN 11, turned out to be a visit to Golan’s residence.
Visibly shaken, Zamolowski said that as they were parking outside Golan’s home, his father kept her in the vehicle by force and demanded she carry out a sexual act on him before she was allowed to see Golan.
Further, Zamolowski said that Biton manipulated her into lying about her age to Golan.
“He told me that if I really wanted to meet Eyal, I would have to tell him it was my 18th birthday – that I was one year older,” she said in the interview with Assenheim and Kuban.
Zamolowski remembered then entering Golan’s apartment. The singer was hosting a party at the time.
PER ZAMOLOWSKI, several other high-profile Mizrahi (descendants of local Jewish communities in the Middle East and North Africa from biblical times into the modern era) singers and musicians were in attendance.
While there, she said that Biton sat her down next to “this guy named Aviad” and made sure that she kept drinking alcoholic beverages.
Later, Zamolowski said that Golan encouraged the party’s attendants to congratulate her for her legality: “Today, she is 18.”
On her way to a restroom, Golan stopped Zamolowski.
“Leaning closer, he asked me if I was into oral sex,” she recalled, “because he could tell by my lips ‘I was good at it."
“We went out to the stairwell... I performed oral sex on him, after which Golan went back to the apartment. A few moments later, one of [Golan’s] friends came out, someone famous, and told me: ‘Give me what you gave Eyal,’” Zamolowski said.
Although she said she told the man she was not interested, he allegedly dropped his pants and aggressively raped her, forcing Zamolowski into performing oral sex.
“I don’t remember anything from that night after that. I don’t even remember how I got home,” she added.
A Golan fan since the age of 10, Zamolowski told KAN this was her “only sin.”She added, “I idolized a monster.”
Both Golan and his famous acquaintance, who remained nameless in the interview, denied her version of events to KAN.
Golan’s father would continue to call her incessantly, inviting her to more concerts and recordings, Zamolowski said.
She told Assenheim and Kuban that Biton would use the opportunity to see his son again as a means to receive more sexual favors from her and to manipulate her into giving such favors to his associates, including a man who worked in Golan’s production company.
In another incident, she recalled being coerced by Biton to enter a van. He then locked her inside with a man named Steve, who sexually assaulted her.
ZAMOLOWSKI ALSO spoke of how she was punished by Golan’s father for refusing to perform sexual acts on his acquaintances.
For example, “We drove out to Netanya to see his friend, Aviad. He wanted me to be with him, but I refused. Later, [Biton] left, and Aviad was heavily intoxicated and fell asleep. The morning had almost come, yet [Biton] didn’t return my calls. He left me there.
“I just left the apartment and walked on the side of the road… after half an hour, a Netanya municipality worker stopped me to ask if everything was okay.
“I told him I was stranded, that I didn’t have a way to go home to Bat Yam. He took me back home,” Zamolowski said.
“Every time you say no, every time you do not do as you are told, every time you are not being a good girl, this is what will happen,” Biton allegedly told her after she called him once she got home
Multiple instances of alleged sexually assault
Moreover, Biton allegedly sexually assaulted Zamolowski numerous times over the course of a trip to Eilat that they had taken along with an acquaintance of his and with N, another alleged victim of Biton’s.
According to testimonies from both Zamolowski and N, Biton forced them to sleep in the same hotel room with him and his acquaintance, where they sexually abused both girls.
In Eilat, the two were told to come to Golan’s hotel suite, N told KAN, whereby he allegedly sexually assaulted them both in an “aggressive and forceful manner."
“We left [Golan’s suite] bruised all over,” said N.
Before leaving, however, Zamolowski recounted that Golan brought another friend of his into the bedroom whom he had wanted the two to “pleasure.”
After Golan left the room, his unnamed friend violently raped both Zamolowski and N, forcibly pinning them down and shutting their mouths as he did, according to what both women told KAN.
TWO WEEKS later, Zamolowski and N were arrested by the Israel Police on suspicion of prostitution, following a year-long cover investigation by law enforcement into the happenings among Golan’s circle.
In their interviews with KAN, the two decried the police’s treatment of them while in custody.
“If you have been carrying out an undercover investigation for a year, and I have been inside this system for over a year, what does that mean?” Zamolowski asked.
“It means [the Israel Police] heard everything and knew everything and allowed it all to happen,” she pointed out.In 2015, Biton was convicted as part of a plea bargain in the case, dubbed the Social Game, and was sentenced to two years in prison.
He was also found guilty of paying the underage girls, giving them presents in exchange for sex, and obstruction of justice. In 2021, he died of COVID-19.
The case against Golan was closed in May 2023 due to lack of evidence.
Following KAN’s interview, Golan put out a statement on his Instagram account in which he insisted that he had no knowledge of the actions of those who “used my name and exploited it to act in a manner that I condemn.”
“All of these actions were done without my knowledge and behind my back, as can be understood from the article that aired yesterday,” he wrote.
Golan added, “I cut all those people out of my life, including my father, with whom I completely cut off contact and changed my family name because of his actions.”