A Knock at the Door: The Story of My Secret Work With Israeli MIAs and POWs

Ory Slonim

Dec 2021 · Wicked Son

About this ebook

Suppose one day, your son or husband, while serving in the military or working as a journalist, is taken hostage by a terrorist group—and you have no idea whether your loved one is dead or alive or how to even make contact with the insurgents holding him. It’s a nightmare scenario that has sadly taken place dozens of times in the past twenty years in the Middle East.

Here in the U.S., the government does not always get involved. Instead, it will engage the services of a neutral country to negotiate with the terrorists. Unfortunately, many times the terrorists insist on never-ending demands in order to torment the family of the hostage. Unlike Israel, we’ve never had a central address for these types of scenarios. But maybe after reading this book, it’s an idea we could, and should, consider. Ory Slonim, the international “door knocker” was an invention of necessity by the Israeli government.

There were many good and brave human beings involved in this matter. Here for the first time is the story of the one man in Israel who, for more than two decades, was known as the “door knocker.” He had been a private Israeli lawyer when he was asked to undertake, on behalf of the Israeli government, secret negotiations to find out the whereabouts of Israeli soldiers who were taken hostage by terrorist groups. His ultimate mission was to bring them home, dead or alive. In his capacity as negotiator, his story will take into you into the worlds of the furtive Mossad, the twisted minds of terrorists, the forever traumatized lives of the parents whose children never came home from battle, and into Ory’s own resilient, compassionate, and amazingly resolute negotiations when ordinary people would have easily broken down.

About the author

Born 1942 in Israel, Ory Slonim grew up amidst the ravages of war. The War of Independence. Ory, who came from a seventh-generation family that lived in Hebron, grew up in Tel Aviv, married, and became a successful lawyer in 1970.

In 1986, Israeli President Haim Herzog appointed Ory as special counsel to the defense minister for issues of POW-MIAs from the civilian world, concentrating on families.

Slonim enlisted in the mission, accepting a payment of one Israeli Shekel per year gaining senior cooperation with the Mossad. In the next thirty-six years, he searched the world for young IDF soldiers, pilots, and reservists who were captured in battles and not heard from again. His mission to find the missing boys: traveling to nations that did not recognize Israel, meeting with terrorist representatives. In the capacity of knocking on doors worldwide, and on families of the POW-MIAs, Ory became known as the “Door Knocker.”