Tel-Chai Nation

An indictment was filed against the Haredi rabbi Yosef Paryzer, who caused a scandal by committing serial adultery, though the prosecution wants to make it a case of rape by deception, a controversial law in Israel. Some of what's told here:

Paryzer, a 34-year-old American citizen and married father of two, lived a double life. His youngest child was born just three months before his secret came to light. He lived with his ultra-Orthodox family in Jerusalem and taught at a yeshiva, but also presented himself on various dating websites and applications such as Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid as Segal. Segal appeared to women as a single, secular to traditional man who worked as a seeing-eye dog trainer.

As Segal, he dated over 30 women, many at the same time, since 2016. One of his longest extra-marital relationships was almost seven years long. Paryzer promised the women serious relationships, which appeared to be geared toward marriage and family.

[...] Paryzer showered the women with affection, the indictment alleged, never intending to fulfill his promises but simply to obtain their trust, part of a systematic and sophisticated modus operandi to satisfy his own needs.

[...] The district attorney alleged that Paryzer also courted women not just for sex through dating apps, but sought and obtained sexual images and videos from them.

When some of the women he met dating discovered his deception, two filed a complaint to the police.

In Israel, it is a sexual offense to have sexual relations with consent achieved through deception of one’s identity.

Some of the women have been against criminal prosecution, preferring to move on from the relationships.

Paryzer was arrested on August 22, and has been held in jail since.

Now first, while his serial adultery is appalling, it still seems awfully disputable to claim he literally raped the women, if the relations were consensual. Though it definitely was offensive how he deceived one of the women who was in bad shape following a different relationship that failed. However, the part about his obtaining sexual imagery from the women, that's disturbing, as it strongly indicates he committed an invasion of privacy. Consider: what if he'd distributed the images on the web, causing all sorts of embarrassment for the ladies? That would have been offensive, and a violation of their privacy.

So that's the real reason to file a legal case against Paryzer, who's since been fired by his yeshiva. And most of the women he tricked, as noted, don't support prosecution over deception alone. It'd be better if that law deeming sexual relations through deception were jettisoned, and Paryzer just charged with illegal solicitation of photos and videos. And that'd be just the beginning of what laws could be mended, IMO.

Labels: communications, haredi corruption, Israel, Jerusalem, misogyny, Moonbattery