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By: Benyamin Davidsons
At Monday’s New York Police Department’s graduation, recruit Allan Pearlman will graduate, making Jews all around the world proud.
As reported by the Jerusalem Post, Pearlman, a Modern Orthodox Jew from Staten Island, will receive the Police Academy Commanding Officer’s award for Exceptional Police Duty. He is one of just seven recruits to be honored from the graduating class of 600 recruits. The Police Academy, in College Point, Queens, trains recruits for a roughly six month period.
Pearlman was chosen for the award based on his fast response during two episodes. The first episode was in May, when Pearlman was running laps in the gym during training, and they all heard a loud thud. One of his classmates was lying immobile on the ground.
Immediately, Pearlman’s training as an EMT kicked in, and he grabbed a police academy medical bag. He rushed to his classmate’s side, made sure she had a pulse and treated her until the ambulance came. Per the report on the Jewish Telegraphic Agency web site, the other heroic episode was when Pearlman saw another recruit for NYPD traffic enforcement similarly lying on the ground in June on the police academy’s muster deck. Pearlman ran outside to treat the recruit, who was having a diabetic episode. He reportedly provided urgent care until an ambulance arrived. “I personally don’t think I did anything special,” Pearlman told the New York Jewish Week. “I saw somebody that needed help and I went.”
Pearlman’s award at the NYPD ceremony is especially heartening at a time when anti-Semitism has grown alarmingly across the world. New York City streets, public schools and college campuses have been embroiled with anti-Israel protests. In NY, there were over 223 anti-Semitic hate crimes reported to police since Jan. 1, as per preliminary police data. Just this Saturday, in a very chilling episode, an arsonist lit a Hatzalah emergency services vehicle on fire in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The incident is being investigated as a suspected hate crime, per JPost.
“It’s concerning with what’s happening across the city with the Jewish community but as you see the police department is actively recruiting members of the Jewish community,” said Deputy Chief Richie Taylor, the NYPD’s highest-ranking Orthodox Jew. “It’s very important for the police department to reflect the city that we serve,” Taylor said. “Every community would be appreciative to see someone who reflects them and speaks their language.”
Taylor said the NYPD does not track the number of Orthodox Jews on the police force.
The NYPD recruits candidates from all communities throughout the city. Pearlman, 26, was himself motivated from a very young age to serve. “I just always wanted to be a police officer ever since I was a kid,” he said. He previously worked as an EMT in New Jersey with Hatzalah for eight years. “I got to see what they really did and that further drew me to it,” he said.
“It’s important to have every culture, every religion. It just gives us a better understanding of how to police and protect our communities,” Pearlman said. “If I end up in a precinct that has a predominantly Jewish community it will definitely be beneficial.
I’ll be able to understand why certain things are being done the way that they’re being done.”
