A Rabbi's Run-In With The Police

Shira pointed me to this wonderful story about a Rabbi who walks into a courthouse in Helena, Montana and is approached by a police officer with this bomb sniffing dog. The conversation went like so:

“I’m Officer John Fosket of the Helena Police,” he said. “This is Miky, our security dog. Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?”

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.

Turns out, the officer was having a heck of a time trying to pronounce the Hebrew commands he had to use to get his dog to function. With the Rabbi's help, though, they were able to get back on track.

Like I said, it's a wonderful story, so give it a full read. I guess you just never know when those foreign language skills will come in handy.