Son and grandson of rabbis, retired detective Mordecai Dzikansky says his lineage is his bullet-proof vest. Not bad protection for a homicide detective who spent 20 years on the streets of New York, breaking up crime rings and establishing himself as an international expert on terrorism, community crime, and Torah scroll theft.
The steely-eyed stern-faced policeman who appears on the cover of the book Terrorist Cop was certainly not the man who showed up for our interview. But the pleasant and approachable fellow who did appear made good on all his alter ego’s promises. Son and grandson of rabbis Mordecai Dzikansky (pronounced Jekansky) is both one of our own and one of the law enforcement team proudly nicknamed “New York’s Finest.”
Twenty years on the streets of New York — as a homicide detective and organized crime and terror-related investigator tracking down drug dealers and busting crime rings and heading a task force on stolen sifrei Torah plus five years as the counterterrorism liaison of the New York Police Department in Israel — have turned the 49-year-old Brooklyn native into an international expert on global security intelligence gathering and keeping communities safe.
“My yichus has kept me safe. It’s been my bulletproof vest” the toweringly tall salt-and-pepper-haired Dzikansky avows from behind his no-nonsense black-rimmed glasses. Dzikansky’s grandfather and namesake Rabbi Mordechai Zev Dzikansky ztz”l was rosh yeshivah of Ohr HaChaim in Slabodka and then came to America in 1935 and he spent his last years as rosh yeshivah of MTJ on the Lower East Side where the family settled.
His father Rabbi Jekuthiel Dzikansky a student of Telshe in Europe who made it to the US in 1939 became a student of Rav Joseph Soloveitchik ztz”l and continued the family mission of community service in the development department of Yeshiva University for over 45 years.
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