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Rookie Cop
Deep Undercover in the
Jewish Defense League
by Richard Rosenthal
In the heady summer days of 1970, an untrained police recruit, recently returned to Brooklyn from a tour in the air force, was secretly assigned by the NYPD to infiltrate an up-and-coming urban terrorist organization described only as "a black cloud on the horizon." It was led by a charismatic rogue rabbi, whose impact would be felt around the world. Administered his oath of office in an empty building, stripped of his badge, forbidden to attend the police academy or mingle with other officers at any time, Richard Rosenthal advanced through the ranks of the Jewish Defense League from its early days of street intimidation through its production of incendiary weapons, its international airline hijacking attempt and ultimately its bombings, until he became a firearms instructor, oversaw their weapons arsenal, and acted as body guard to the notorious Rabbi Meir Kahane. With a cast of characters that includes Joe Colombo, the Brooklyn mob, the Ku Klux Klan, former French President Pompidou, the grave diggers’ union, and the Soviet Mission to the United States, Rookie Cop is not only the very human story of a young cop on an outrageously dangerous assignment but one of the wackiest true police stories ever told.
"A strange true tale of a Jewish
NYPD cadet recruited into the department's elite intelligence unit to spy on the Jewish
Defense League, offering vivid portraits of a politically incendiary era and revealing
secrets of intrusive police tactics...This is a well-tuned portrait of the stress and
acrimony that permeates such radical cliques, and of the lonely, paranoid personalities at
their centers — and it offers insights into the radically charged
violence of the early 1970s...Rosenthal has a fine eye for human detail and a cop's
mordant sensibility. Altogether an exciting tale of unusual police practices, and a solid
portrait of a quintessential fringe radical group inhabiting insecure, volatile times.
— Kirkus Reviews (June 15, 2000)
"Reads like outtakes from The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight!"
— The Boston Globe (August 23, 2000)
"Quite
compelling…leaving the reader wanting to know more about the crimes perpetrated by
the JDL, the undercover operations against it, and its head, Rabbi Meir Kahane."
— Library Journal (July, 2000)
"Rosenthal does a solid job of reconstructing his undercover stint."
— Publishers Weekly (July 3, 2000)
"If this book were fiction I
wouldn't believe it...Rookie Cop is a fabulous combination of true crime and backyard
gossip. Reading Rosenthal's account of the events he was involved in is like running
across a really interesting guy at a party who tells you the most unbelievable tale in the
most believable way... This is a modern morality tale written in the most modern terms and
should be assigned reading for anyone who thinks they would kill for a cause."
— Carlye Archibeque, The Independent
Review Site
"A remarkable look into a hidden world of Jewish militancy; Richard
Rosenthal's story reads like a trip through the looking glass."
— Rich Cohen, Author of Tough Jews
"This book is more than a memoir, it
is a blueprint for how not to conduct a criminal conspiracy. Executed with
admirable economy, written with the law-abiding fan in mind, it is must reading for all
the bad guys."
— Robert Sabbag Author of Snowblind
"A compelling and clear-eyed
portrait of a clannish, secret, and vengeful world. I read it with great interest and
respect."
— Alec Wilkinson, Author of Midnights: A Year with the Wellfleet
Police
Read an excerpt from Rookie Cop
Before
becoming Chief of Police in Wellfleet, Massachusetts, Richard Rosenthal
spent twenty years in the New York City Police Department, where he ran the Heavy Weapons
and Undercover Weapons Training programs and, as a detective in the Bronx dealt with
homicide, narcotics, and armed robbery. Before joining the NYPD, he worked for U.S. Air
Force military intelligence as a Russian language specialist. Pocket Books published his
two popular books of police craft, Sky Cops and K-9 Cops, as well as his
novel, The Murder of Old Comrades, "a spicy police procedural about KGB
assassins on the loose in Manhattan," according to The Wall Street Journal,
which "put Mr. Rosenthal on the map in big-league publishing."
True Crime/Jewish Studies/Biography
A Leapfrog Press Paperback Original
Pub Date: August, 2000
ISBN: 0-9654578-4-5
200 Pages/ 6 x 9 / 14.95
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