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 mostly secular and single and made promises of long-term relationships, marriage, and starting a family, he was in fact a married father and a 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 reportedly fired Paryzer upon hearing the news about him and removed his profile from their website. His short biography described him as in “high demand from other yeshivos” and as an alumnus of New York’s Yeshiva Darchei Torah and Jerusalem’s Yeshiva Kodshim.
A warning message shared by victims on social media said Paryzer, who also went by the pseudonym “Jake Westman,” had said he was not a rabbi but was rather working with guide dogs for the blind.
The statement said Paryzer presented himself as a new immigrant from Brooklyn with no family in Israel. He reportedly told his victims he was secular to moderately religious.
Several victims shared chilling testimonies on social media
The police said they had collected the testimony of five victims, but a warning message shared by victims on social media said 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, i.e., false identity of the perpetrator, is a criminal offense that is legally defined as rape,” one of his victims wrote.
Paryzer’s photos on his yeshiva profile and dating profile were published by the police on Thursday in the hope that more victims will be able to identify him and contact the police. The suspect is in detention until at least Monday.