Non­fic­tion

Ter­ror­ist Cop: The NYPD Jew­ish Cop Who Trav­eled the World to Stop Terrorists

Morde­cai Dzikan­sky and Robert Slater

  • Review
By – August 30, 2011

This fas­ci­nat­ing mem­oir is by a Jew­ish, Brook­lyn born, recent­ly retired NYPD detec­tive. Dzikan­sky, the kip­pah wear­ing son of a rab­bi, had a typ­i­cal mod­ern Ortho­dox upbring­ing, includ­ing a year of study in Israel, then decid­ed to become a New York City cop. Through hard work and ded­i­ca­tion he quick­ly rose up the ranks. His help was sought in inves­ti­gat­ing such high pro­file cas­es as the mur­ders of Rab­bi Meir Kahane and Ari Hal­ber­stam. He also had a piv­otal role in solv­ing sev­er­al cas­es of Torah theft. Dzikan­sky report­ed to Ground Zero on 9/11 and then to the Med­ical Examiner’s tent city,” where vic­tims’ remains were iden­ti­fied. When he was offered an assign­ment in Israel in 2003 to pro­vide on the spot intel­li­gence of ter­ror attacks and to learn as much as pos­si­ble to aid New York City’s defense against ter­ror, Dzikan­sky signed on. (He even­tu­al­ly made aliyah.) Dzikan­sky was also sent to report on attacks in Istan­bul, Moscow, Madrid, and Sharm-el-Sheikh. The on-site infor­ma­tion he gath­ered was crit­i­cal in pro­vid­ing New York City with sig­nif­i­cant ways to deal with and pre­vent ter­ror threats. In 2004, Police Com­mis­sion­er Kel­ly pro­mot­ed Dzikan­sky to Detec­tive First Grade. Dzikan­sky writes in a mat­ter of fact way about the gris­ly events he wit­nessed, dis­cuss­es post trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, and lists lessons learned from his career. Index.

Miri­am Brad­man Abra­hams is a Cuban-born, Brook­lyn-raised, Long Island-resid­ing mom. She is Hadas­sah Nas­sau’s One Region One Book chair­la­dy, a free­lance essay­ist, and a cer­ti­fied yoga instruc­tor who has loved review­ing books for the JBC for the past ten years.

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