Man dressed asOrthodox Jew accused of sex. assault.women Toronto

Investigators need help identifying a man dressed as an Orthodox Jew who is suspected of offering to bless women in Thornhill before sexually assaulting them. (Supplied by Toronto Police)

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The first took place May 22 around 11:30 p.m. as a 27-year-old woman was walking to her home, along York Hill Blvd. in Thornhill. A man approached and asked if he could bless her.

When the woman refused, the man assaulted her and then offered another blessing. The woman refused and kept walking.
Police said he then followed her up to her apartment, but left when the family dog began barking.

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The man is described as six-feet-tall, with long brown side curls and glasses. Police said he speaks Hebrew and English.

The suspect, who appeared to be dressed as an Orthodox Jewish man, was wearing black shoes, black pants, a long black trench/dress coat with a white-collared shirt underneath and a large brimmed hat.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact them at 416-808-3200 or anonymously at Crime Stoppers, 416-222-TIPS.

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[h=1]Man who offers victims 'blessing' suspected of multiple assaults[/h]

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The third incident reportedly occurred on May 24 at around 4 p.m.

The man knocked on the door of a 38-year-old woman. He asked if he could give her a blessing as he walked into her entryway.
He then allegedly sexually assaulted her inside her apartment.

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ninij9 said:

Why "appeared to be dressed as"? He can actually be an orthodox man committing these crimes. Articles make it sound like he's in disguise.

Sent from my XT1650 using Tapatalk

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bluesneakers said:

At this point all they know about how he's dressed is it's how he appears - maybe it is a disguise. No one can tell whether or not he's an Orthodox Jew just by looking at him, and what if someone sees a man who resembles but isn't dressed in Orthodox clothing and assumes it's not him?

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Momoffourboys said:

I wonder if he actually "speaks hebrew" or he just blessed the victims in Hebrew. Conversational Hebrew is, almost, a different language than prayers/blessings. Also, a majority of ultra Orthodox/ Hasidic Jews speak Yiddish, rather than modern Hebrew.

Also, the two men look completely different, IMO, in the two pics posted.

Lastly, I wish they would show his jacket open. Hasidic/Orthodox wear an udnergarment with strings that hang at the sides (tsitsit).

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Man dressed in ultra-Orthodox garb allegedly sexually assaulted a woman in her apartment in the Bathurst Street and Steeles Avenue West area.

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scapa said:

As someone who grew up in this area (and whose family speaks Hebrew), I find the outfit and body language off, though of course this is CCCTV footage, so everything's washed out. Looks more like a costume than someone's clothes, IMO, as does the facial hair, while the gait and resting posture seem more like the perp's "real" self.

Anyway, a seat-of-the-pants JMO.

best,

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[h=1]The High Price of Leaving Ultra-Orthodox Life[/h] Young adults who decide to abandon their cloistered Jewish communities have only one another —
and a single organization — to help them navigate the alternate reality of modern-day New York.

By TAFFY BRODESSER-AKNERMARCH 30, 2017

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On Thursdays, the nonprofit organization Footsteps hosts a drop-in group for its membership of formerly ultra-Orthodox Jews, who mostly refer to themselves as “off the derech.” “Derech” means “path” in Hebrew, and “off the derech,” or O.T.D. for short, is how their ultra-Orthodox families and friends refer to them when they break away from these tight-knit, impermeable communities, as in: “Did you hear that Shaindel’s daughter Rivkie is off the derech? I heard she has a smartphone and has been going to museums.” So even though the term is burdened with the yoke of the very thing they are trying to flee, members remain huddled together under “O.T.D.” on their blogs and in their Facebook groups, where their favored hashtag is #itgetsbesser — besser meaning “better” in Yiddish. Sometimes someone will pop up on a message board or in an email group and say, “Shouldn’t we decide to call ourselves something else?” But it never takes. Reclamations are messy.

At the drop-in session I attended, 10 men and women in their 20s and 30s sat around a coffee table. Some of them were dressed like me, in jeans and American casualwear, and others wore the clothing of their upbringings: long skirts and high-collared shirts for women; black velvet skullcaps and long, virgin beards and payot (untrimmed side locks) for men. Half of them had extricated themselves from their communities and were navigating new, secular lives. But half still lived among their Hasidic and ultra-Orthodox sects in areas of New York City, New Jersey and the Hudson Valley and were secretly dipping their toes into the secular world — attending these meetings, but also doing things as simple as walking down the street without head coverings, or trying on pants in a clothing store, or eating a nonkosher doughnut, or using the internet.

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