Date
Thursday, January 28, 2021
7:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Presenting Sponsor:
Webinar Sponsors:
Darrell Blocker’s extraordinary journey as a Jew-by-choice and one of America’s leading spies
To celebrate the end of our 2020 Annual Campaign, UJA invites you to meet one of the most fascinating people in the Jewish world today. Raised in a churchgoing Georgia family, Darrell Blocker began a lifelong journey into Judaism in college and converted in 2017 … right before retiring as the most senior Black officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations.
Meet the operative known in the intelligence community as the “Spy Whisperer” and learn more about his story. Join us for an inside look at the world of spycraft from a master—an extraordinary Jew-by-choice whom pundits note was a leading contender for Director of the CIA.
Darrell’s story exemplifies the diversity and dynamism of our community. At our Campaign Closing, we will celebrate the remarkable character of Jewish Toronto, and all we achieved together in a challenging year.
Hosted by UJA's 2020 Annual Campaign Co-Chairs:
Sara Zagdanski and Leonard Abramsky
Please register by 5:00 PM on Wednesday, January 27, 2021
For more information or to submit questions for our speaker, email Jennifer Hazan at jhazan@ujafed.org
SPEAKER
Darrell M. Blocker
Darrell M. Blocker is an American whose journey to becoming Yehudah Ben Avraham began and ended on university campuses on opposite coasts of the United States, 35 years apart.
Darrell experienced his first Shabbat candle lighting on the University of Georgia campus at the AEPi fraternity house in the early 1980s. More than three decades later, after attending a program at the American Jewish University in Los Angeles, Darrell’s official conversion was completed.
Darrell worked during the summer of 1986 for the Atlanta Jewish Community Center in the kosher kitchen at Camp Barney Medintz. There he met Jewish campers and counsellors from across the nation, along with concentration camp survivors and Israeli Defense Forces speakers, all of whom had a profound impact on his world view.
Darrell went on to a 32-year career in the U.S. Intelligence Community—including 28 years in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)—taking him to foreign countries like Italy, South Korea, Niger, Senegal, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, and Switzerland. Darrell was the most senior Black CIA officer in the Directorate of Operations when he retired in October 2018, with rank equivalency to a three-star general. He was awarded the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal upon retirement. Darrell was also a recipient of the George H.W. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism, the DO Manager of the Year, and received myriad other accolades over his nearly three-decade career.
Darrell currently works for MOSAIC, a strategic crisis management advisory firm, as Chief Operating Officer and a consultant in the entertainment industry.