Looks Can Tragically Be Deceiving

Rabbi Yosef Paryzer and Jake Segal (Jerusalem Post)

Al Tistakel B’Kankan Elah Mah Sheyesh Bo (Avos 4:20). The English equivalent of which is ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover.’ (Not a translation.) This sage advice seems to be completely disregarded these days. We all seem to judge people by appearances. 

Depending on which of the 2 images you look at in the Jerusalem Post - one will see either Yosef Paryzer, a popular Charedi teacher of young men in an anglo oriented Yeshiva, or ‘Jake Segal’ a cool dude looking for some ‘action’. And by ‘action’ I mean of a sexual nature. From the Jerusalem Post:  

(Jake’) 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.

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.

Sadly, sexual predation has become so common that in spite of its devastating (sometimes lifelong) consequences, it his hardly newsworthy anymore. What makes this particular story newsworthy is that Jake Segal and Rabbi Yosef Paryzer are one and the same person.  Having learned about his arrest and the nature of the accusations, his Yeshiva fired him.  Bottom line message for all of us is ‘what you see is not always what you get’.

Malka Leifer in custody (JTA)

Unfortunately much of the Charedi world - which prides itself on listening to the sages - has not gotten this message. Appearances do seem to determine how people are treated. As was the case with Malka Leifer, the former principal of a Charedi girls high school in Australia. Mrs. Leifer, a Ger Chasidista looks about as Charedi as one can get. What often seems to be the case is that the ‘Frummer’ one looks, the more likely they are to be believed and defended against even the most heinous crimes. Sometimes even after they have been convicted - their belief in that innocence is maintained. As is the case with the notorious Charedi rapist, Nechemya Weberman. 

The same was true with Leifer. After having been accused of sexual abuse in Australia, she managed to escaped to Israel before she could stand trial. When Australian authorities attempted to extradite her, she turned to Rabbi Yaakov Litzman a powerful (at the time) member of the Israeli Knesset and fellow Ger Chasid - for help.

One might have assumed that when there are multiple accusations of sex abuse, that he would not hamper that effort. Certainly not by fraudulent means.  But one would have assumed wrong. He actually attempted to use his influence as Heath Minister at the time to get government psychiatrists to falsely verify that she was mentally incompetent and could not stand trial. All while in truth she was living a normal Chasidic life with her husband. 

Ultimately that failed and she was extradited.  And as we now know she was found guilty of 18 counts of sexual abuse and rape of her former students. And sentenced to 15years in prison. (If I recall correctly Litzman eventually ‘paid’ for his crime in a plea deal that forced him to resign from his Knesset seat but with no jail time.) 

I should add that it wasn't only Litzman. There were also fundraising efforts undertaken for her defense.

Why did Litzman and company do this? They probably looked at Mrs. Liefer and said, ‘She’s one of us’. She could therefore never have done what she was accused of doing. Her accusers were not to be believed. Litzman and company looked at the ‘book cover’ and not what was inside it.

Here was this ‘fine Charedi woman’ a wife and mother that wore her religiosity all over her body. Every strand of hair always meticulously covered. Now being victimized by her former students for  - who knows what reason! Probably for some sort of  vendetta. 

With that assumed innocence, sending her to an Australian court (Arkaos Akum) was out of the question.. It didn’t matter that there would be no religious court that would address the grievances of her victims. ‘Look at Malka!’ ‘She’s innocent!’. How can someone that looks like that be guilty of what she was accused? To Litzman and company all that mattered was her image.

I am fairly certain that had Leifer been a secular women, Litzman wouldn’t have committed a crime on her behalf and surely there would have been no fundraising efforts.

Malka Leifer is a sick woman who let her desires overcome any sense of right and wrong ultimately satisfying those desires at the expense of innocent human beings: her own students that trusted her. There is can be no mercy for someone like that. Rabbi Yakov Horowitz put it best in a mass email: 

Here is an article about Leifer's sentencing, but I respectfully encourage you to do a Google search for her victims' impact statements. 

They are just heartbreaking. 

For many years now, I've been saying that the only people who really get life sentences in child abuse cases are the survivors. 

"Malka Leifer Should Not Get Your Kindness," is an article I wrote in The Times of Israel in 2019 about this saga overall, and in particular, the nauseating fundraising efforts undertaken for her defense. 

Could not agree more. But in my book, what Litzman and company did was worse. They trusted the exterior that they saw. An  ‘exceedingly Frum’ woman being ‘unfairly’ accused. And they were going to do whatever they could to protect her. 

There is no excuse for the trauma they added to Leifer's victims.  Litzman and company did precisely what the sages warned against: Al Tistakel B’Kankan Elah Mah SheYesh Bo.