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The Extraordinary Journey of a Black, Jewish, Zionist Singer and Spy Whisperer, with Darrell Blocker

Five days after October 7, former CIA counterterrorism officer Darrell Blocker sat down with Cheryl Dorchinsky at Ahavath Achim Synagogue to talk about how he came to Judaism and about the war that had just begun.

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Speaker

  • Darrell Blocker

    Former deputy director, CIA Counterterrorism Center; Vice Chairman, MOSAIC

    A former US Air Force intelligence officer and a 28-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine service, he served as deputy director of the CIA's Counterterrorism Center. He is a subject matter expert on terrorism, Iran, and North Korea for ABC News, a singer, and a University of Georgia graduate.

Darrell Blocker spent 28 years in the CIA’s clandestine service and rose to deputy director of its Counterterrorism Center. On October 12, 2023, five days after the Hamas attack, he sat down with Cheryl Dorchinsky at Ahavath Achim Synagogue, in front of a room and live on Zoom.

He started with his own story. He grew up in a Black Baptist family in Augusta, learned tikkun olam from his parents, and later converted to Judaism. He told the room he feels he was born Jewish.

Then Cheryl asked the hard questions. How did nobody see the attack coming? He said intelligence is never a cure-all, and pointed to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Were Jews here at risk? He didn’t think Hamas had much reach outside the region, beyond lone wolves. Could the hostages still be alive? Some of them, because Hamas sees them as something to trade. Cheryl kept politics out of it, and he called himself a middle-of-the-road independent who had served under six presidents.

It ended with everyone singing Am Yisrael Chai. Ahavath Achim hosted, and AIC thanked the synagogue and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta afterward.

In Partnership With

  • Ahavath Achim Synagogue
  • Jewish Community Relations Council of Atlanta

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