Absolutely Disgusting! Ariel man poses as rabbi, rapes woman to ‘repair her soul’ Yonatan Bassa, 38, posed as Rabbi, forced woman seeking counseling to have sex in order to 'repair her soul'; defrauded her of $18,000 by Vered Luvitch The Tel-Aviv District Court charged 38-year-old Yonatan Bassa of Ariel with rape and committing an indecent act Tuesday, after the latter had sexually assaulted a woman who had turned to him for counseling while he had posed as a rabbi. The indictment states that Bassa would claim to be a rabbi and give Torah lesson to Jewish penitents, or ba’alei teshuvah, even though he was never ordained. In March 2007, he was approached by a woman who had asked for his guidance and help in returning to the Jewish faith. During this first meeting he asked the woman for money to ‘redeem her soul’, and instructed her to stop psychotherapy as well as all psychiatric medication. Bassa’s charge obediently stopped taking her prescribed psychiatric medication, an...
