A mysterious man calling himself ‘Jake Segal’ on dating applications and websites was arrested on Tuesday night by Israel Police in Jerusalem after using a false identity and fraudulent pretexts to date and sleep with women.
While Segal presented himself as more secular and single and made promises of long-term relationships, marriage, and starting a family, he was in fact a married father and Rabbi working at a Jerusalem yeshiva.
“Jake Segal” is the alter-ego of Rabbi Yosef Paryzer. Paryzer is a foreign citizen in his 30s who worked at Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim as a lecturer for first-year students. The Anglo-centric yeshiva had immediately fired Paryzer upon hearing the news about the rabbi, and removed his profile from their website. His short biography had described him as in “high demand from other yeshivos” and that he was an alumnus of New York Yeshiva Darchei Torah and Jerusalem Yeshiva Kodshim.
A warning message shared by victims on social media claimed that Paryzer, who also went by the pseudonym “Jake Westman,” said he was not a rabbi but was rather working with guide dogs for the blind.
The statement said that Paryzer presented himself as an oleh from Brooklyn with no family in Israel. He reportedly told his victims that he was varyingly secular to moderately religious.
Yeshivat Ohr Yerushalayim, where ”Jack Segal” once worked. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)Several victims shared chilling testimonies on social media
Police said that they had collected the testimony of five victims, but a warning message shared by victims on social media said that he had been in simultaneous serious relationships with at least nine women over the course of at least seven years.
“Consensual sex performed under false pretenses, ie. false identity of the perpetrator, is a criminal offense that is legally defined as rape,” read the victim’s warning message.
Paryzer’s yeshiva profile picture and dating profile pictures were published by the police on Thursday in hopes that more victims would be able to identify him and contact the police. The suspect is in detention until at least Monday.
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