I returned from the International March of the Living (MOTL) carrying something I know I will never fully be able to put into words.
There are moments in life that do more than inform. They transform. They reshape how you see yourself, what you carry and the responsibilities you can no longer ignore. Walking through Auschwitz alongside more than 130 senior police leaders from around the world was one of those moments.
My work in law enforcement and global security has taken me across local, state, federal and international settings. I have been honored to serve five Secretaries of Homeland Security and to lead the first state-level hate crimes division in the United States. Along the way, I was privileged to help co-found the Secure Community Network (SCN), the Jewish community’s homeland security organization in North America, and I now serve as deputy director of the Rutgers Miller Center for Policing and Community Resilience, as well as chair the International Police Delegation for the March of the Living.
I have been honored in all these roles to work alongside dedicated colleagues confronting some of the most difficult challenges in security and policing. Still, this single opportunity has profoundly changed me, grounding me in a renewed sense of clarity and humanity and reminding me of realities that no career experience alone could have fully prepared me for.
This journey did not begin in Auschwitz. It began in Berlin.
There, in the city where the machinery of Nazi power was once designed and set into motion, we gathered with purpose. Alongside the German Federal Police Union—Europe’s largest police association—and leading law-enforcement organizations from the United States, we signed a Memorandum of Understanding built around a single principle: “Never Again on Our Watch.”
Alongside my fellow police leaders, I pledged those words not as ceremony, but as a binding professional and moral commitment. It was a declaration by senior law-enforcement leaders who understand that their responsibility extends beyond public order. It includes the defense of democratic values, the protection of vulnerable communities and the obligation to confront antisemitism wherever it emerges.
What made this mission so profound was that it was never only about the past. At every stage, it confronted the present.
We met with victims and families affected by recent antisemitic attacks in Bondi Beach, Australia; Manchester, England; and Washington, D.C.—places where Jews have been murdered or violently targeted not in some distant era, but in recent months. These were not reflections on history. They were living testimonies.
They made clear, in the most personal and painful terms, that law enforcement is not peripheral to Jewish security. It is central. It is urgent. In many cases, it is the difference between vulnerability and protection.
From Berlin, we continued on to Auschwitz. To walk those grounds alongside more than 130 senior police leaders from every continent was to witness responsibility in its starkest form. These were not tourists or observers. They were men and women entrusted with the safety of millions.
Together, we confronted what happens when institutions charged with protecting human dignity fail in that duty or become complicit in its destruction. I watched these leaders absorb what they were seeing not only as professionals but as human beings. Many, including those who were not Jewish, openly struggled with the historical role policing once played in enabling the machinery of genocide.
What emerged from that experience was not performance. It was conviction.
I also witnessed something I will never forget.
As we moved through the grounds, marchers from around the world—many of them young people and descendants of survivors—reached out to the police officials walking beside them. I watched as voices called out, “Hey, chief!” as officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were embraced, as New Jersey State Troopers were greeted with gratitude, and as sheriffs in full Western regalia were met with genuine emotion and respect.
In those moments, the distance between uniform and community disappeared.
What remained was trust, shared memory and a profound recognition that those who wear the badge carry responsibilities far beyond enforcement. They are guardians of human dignity, protectors of vulnerable communities and among the first lines of defense against hatred in all its forms.
That is precisely why programs that strengthen partnerships between law enforcement and Jewish communities are more essential now than at any point in recent memory.
What I witnessed through this delegation was not symbolic engagement. It was operational trust being forged in real time. It was police leaders gaining a deeper historical and cultural understanding of the communities they are sworn to protect. It was Jewish participants seeing, often for the first time, the depth of commitment from those in uniform. And it was the dismantling of distance, replaced by something far more durable: partnership grounded in shared responsibility.
What made this effort truly extraordinary was the partnership behind it and the history it made.
For the first time ever, major police associations from the United States formally joined with Europe’s police unions in a unified signing, establishing a transatlantic commitment around a shared mission. At the center of that effort was Jochen Kopelke, the chairman—and now, the newly elected president—of the European Police Union. His steadfast support helped turn vision into action and align policing institutions across continents.
Equally important was the contribution of Marvin (“Ben”) Haiman, executive director of the Center for Public Safety and Justice at the University of Virginia, whose leadership in advancing modern policing education and international engagement helped shape the intellectual and operational foundation of this initiative.
Special thanks are also due to Paul Miller, founder of the Rutgers Miller Center on Policing and Community Resilience, and to our partnership with the International March of the Living. This initiative would not have reached its full impact without the leadership of Phyllis Heideman, president of the International March of the Living Foundation, whose dedication ensured this collaboration was both meaningful and enduring.
Together, these partnerships did more than symbolize cooperation. They established a unified international framework of responsibility, ensuring that the lessons of history are operationalized into action, and that “Never Again” is upheld not as aspiration but as professional standard.
That is what made this journey unlike anything I have witnessed in my career.
In Berlin, we committed to principle. In Auschwitz, we confronted consequence. And in between, we forged something rare in today’s fractured world: an alignment between memory and responsibility, between history and action, and between law enforcement and the communities they serve.
But the true measure of this work will not be found in the signing or symbolism. It will be measured in what happens next—in whether police leaders return home and translate commitment into training, policy and enduring partnerships.
I am honored to have been invited to present this work at the upcoming JNS Policy Conference this June, alongside leaders of major police unions from Europe and the United States, as we continue building this global framework of cooperation, democratic responsibility and protection.
We are past the point where remembrance alone is enough. Jewish communities are not asking for ceremony; they are asking for security. And security requires sustained partnerships, resourced institutions and leaders empowered to act.
The March of the Living did not simply take us back in history. It brought history forward into the present, where its lessons are no longer theoretical but urgent.
“Never Again” is not a reflection on the past. It is a demand placed on the present. And the question before us is no longer whether we understand that responsibility. It is whether we will fulfill it.
