How the rabbi helps the police dog
Dec 6th, 2009
In Montana a Hassidic rabbi helps police speak Hebrew — and it’s all for the benefit of a police dog. From the New York Times:
Miky, pronounced Mikey, is in a Diaspora of his own. He was born in an animal shelter in Holland and shipped as a puppy to Israel, where he was trained by the Israeli Defense Forces to sniff out explosives. Then one day, Miky got a plane ticket to America. Rather than spend the standard $20,000 on a bomb dog, the Helena Police Department had shopped around and discovered that it could import a surplus bomb dog from the Israeli forces for the price of the flight. So Miky came to his new home in Helena, to join the police force.
The problem, the officer explained, was that Miky had been trained entirely in Hebrew. [continue]
Even better than this story, I like the incidental anecdote about the response of the churches to the breaking of Jewish household windows at Hanukkah. Ten thousand menorahs going up in windows all over town – yes! I think it was Denmark who pioneered this approach to anti-semitism. When the order came for Jews to wear the yellow Star of David, the Royal Family (non-Jewish) were the first to line up for their stars and the King proudly proclaimed himself “his country’s first Jew”. Citizens everywhere followed suit, if I remember the story correctly. And that’s the way it should be: a response of exceptional class. And a timely one. I wonder who inspired it this time? Hallelujah.