Former Israeli cop volunteers, works in Vallejo

Feb. 09--Once called the "Starsky and Hutch of Tel Aviv", the life of Igal Koiman of Vallejo has taken a sharp turn to the more sedate in the past couple of decades, but his early life plays like an action flick.

Born in Soviet Ukraine, Koiman said he and his family applied to leave and joined the ranks of "refuseniks" -- Soviet Jews living in limbo, refused permission to emigrate to Israel and denied work in the Soviet Union.

"Anything to do with religion, Israel, the U.S. or the West was strictly verboten," he said. "You'd get KGB attention by making any kind of contact with foreign people, foreign newspapers, anything. It was the time of (Leonid) Brezhnev."

Both Koiman's parents were fired from their jobs, accused of trying to export state secrets, and Koiman was expelled from school for "betraying Mother Russia," he said.

Permission was granted two years later, and the family moved to Israel, and was settled in the Negev desert, he said.

Koiman wound up in a kibbutz -- Mishmar HaNegev (Guard of the Negev) a collective agrarian community -- where he finished his education. When not in school, Koiman worked growing oranges and on the kibbutz's dairy farm.

"It was perfect for me," he said. "I always liked farming."

Being on the border with Gaza, all kibbutzniks also trained in firearms use and Koiman said he became a sharpshooter at age 12 and when he graduated from high school was drafted into the Army, like everyone else in Israel -- male and female.

"All the Army leadership were kibbutzniks -- Golda Maier, Yitzhak Rabin, Moshe Dyan -- and (all my peers) became paratroopers, pilots or commandos, but my aptitude tests said I'd be best as a police investigator," he said. "This would have been an embarrassment. I would have been the butt of jokes. So, I volunteered for a tank/heavy artillery brigade in the Sinai. They thought I was crazy."

He was transferred to mostly Christian southern Lebanon when Israel returned the Sinai to Egypt in 1979, for a front-row seat to the battle for that area between the Israeli-backed Christian militias and the Iran and Syria-backed Hezbollah and other Shiite militants, he said

"I was serving under (former general and former prime minister) Ariel Sharon when the Sabra and Shatilla massacres occurred," he said. Sharon was eventually widely blamed for the massacre of Palestinian Muslims in those camps by what was believed to be Christian militiamen.

"We withdrew from southern Lebanon and Hezbollah took it over, and to this day, that area is a mostly Muslim satellite state of Iran."

An incident in which Koiman assumed command and returned fire after his commanding officer was wounded, earned him a promotion, and likely saved his life, he said.

"I was rotated out early, to get to officers' class on time, and the rest of my unit was ambushed on their way out by a Red Crescent ambulance loaded with explosives," he said. "Half my platoon was killed or injured."

After his mandatory three-year service, Koiman said he found life on the kibbutz too quiet, and fate stepped in to solve his problem.

"One of my former generals was named chief of police of Israel -- they have a federal police force -- and I got a letter asking me to join and help rid the force of corruption," he said. "So they brought me back to the Negev, and when I wasn't there, I was in Tel Aviv, (which is Israel's) 'sin city.'"

Koiman said he became a detective working mostly drug cases, and found that "if you control the drugs, you suppress the crime." He was also assigned to guard dignitaries like former Israeli General Moshe Dyan and former Israeli president Shimon Perez and Rabin, a former general and former prime minister, who was later murdered.

"I knew he was going to be assassinated one day because he was totally non-compliant with security," Koiman said.

Koiman said he once helped prevent a terrorist attack when he spotted an old junker car with brand new license plates and found that suspicious.

"We pulled them over and noticed red and black wires running from the driver to the trunk," he said. "We immediately evacuated the area, and found the car was loaded with explosives, nails, gas ... it was a suicide mission, heading to Tel Aviv. We stopped them almost at the entrance to the city."

But it was an incident in which a suspected drug gang member was captured after he took off with Koiman hanging onto his car, injuring him, that got he and his partner the "Starsky and Hutch" comparison, he said.

And it was his moonlighting with a mobile methadone clinic that presaged his work in the medical field and medical insurance, he said.

"I was 26 in 1985 and suddenly got sick with pneumonia, that only got worse," he said. "I was fainting like a girl all the time, and no one could figure out why."

Several years after leaving Southern Lebanon, he said he moved to Los Angeles and was admitted to Cedars Sinai Medical Center after being found unconscious in a movie theater restroom.

"Apparently, the area around my heart was accumulating large quantities of fluids restricting the muscle," he said. "The medical mystery was solved by one of the hospital's rising stars, Israeli doctor, Aaron Bick, who figured out that I was exposed to Syrian biological weapon experiments, used against South Lebanese Christian residents and their militia. The water source was spiked with this biological fungus agent and many others who'd been in this very specific area were exposed and ended-up with internal problems similar to my condition."

A special treatment regimen solved the problem, he said.

"I wonder how many other people like me didn't have the privilege of being rescued and cured," he said. "That was my second miracle. I guess God has more plans for me on this planet and it was not my time to go."

While living in Los Angeles, he married, went to work for his father-in-law in the dialysis clinic business, raised two children and divorced. He started his own, similar business, moved to the Bay Area and remarried.

In Vallejo only one year, Koiman is drawing on his law enforcement background to form a neighborhood watch group "in my Sycamore Place subdivision together with VPD," with whom he also volunteers.

These days, Koiman works in the financial and insurance business, at igal@[email protected], and volunteers his time in various ways throughout Vallejo, including teaching financial self improvement classes at the Global Center for Success.

Ryan Messano, a center board member and Koiman's new office mate, called him a "very dynamic part of the Global Center for Success, helping people with the basic life skills they need to succeed."

Contact Rachel Raskin-Zrihen at (707) 553-6824.

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