Creating Conversations in Times of Mistrust

In a recent piece in this magazine, Sarah Ludwig Rausch wrote about how political polarization can fracture a security team and undermine its performance. (“Is Political Polarization Affecting Your Security Program?”) The article lists 13 strategies for retaining team cohesion and trust, such as understanding your culture, knowing what your organization represents, and ensuring that everyone feels valued.

Like most things, that’s easier said than done. And it takes extraordinary leaders to carry it out.

I personally witnessed three examples of that leadership when I traveled to Poland in May 2024 for the March of the Living (MOTL) along with a delegation of about 20 law enforcement officers, under the auspices of the Miller Center for Policing and Community Resilience at Rutgers University. We were part of an international crowd of students, dignitaries, educators, Holocaust survivors, historians and the general public who marched the two miles between the Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. Begun in 1988, MOTL memorializes the horrors of the Holocaust, flipping the Nazi death marches at the end of World War II on their head to drive home the resilience and survival of the Jewish people.

Our delegation of law enforcement officials from Louisiana, Nevada, Ottawa, New Jersey and elsewhere had come to bear witness to the remnants of the atrocities of 80 years before. This was the second such delegation; in 2023, a slightly larger group of international law enforcement officers, including some on this year’s mission, presented a formal declaration at MOTL that acknowledged the complicity of police in the Holocaust and vowed to operationalize the phrase “Never again.” They would do so by creating training programs that would help police prevent and address bias, dehumanization and hate that can transform into violence and hate crimes — and even genocide. That training would roll out at MOTL 2024.

Then Hamas struck Israel on October 7, 2023, dividing workplaces around the world and threatening to politicize an event that is designed to further peace and understanding.

Many workplaces ignored the political tensions in the workplace, but not the New Jersey State Police (NJSP).

NJSP’s Col. Patrick Callahan, who attended both marches, consulted with some of his troopers and decided to assemble a group of six Muslim troopers and six Jewish troopers so they could express their feelings and continue to work together without suspicion. Among them were Mudduser Malik, a Muslim, and Marc Zislin, a Jew, who are good friends. Callahan suspected that these two men would model collaborative behavior and let the 12 troopers talk candidly and without recrimination.

It worked. “He brought us together to express concerns, hash out issues, and really let us clear the air,” recalls Zislin. “We all knew and respected each other, most of us had worked together and relied on one another, so we were a good group to start the conversation,” he adds.

Malik points out that because there are relatively few Muslim and Jewish troopers — who are key to reaching out to their populations — it was particularly important to connect. “The connection to our communities is critical, he says. They see us as their representatives and champions, and if we can enable conversations and enhance understanding, we’ve done a great service to our diverse populations.”

“It showed that the New Jersey State Police is on the side of humanity,” Col. Callahan says.”

The three men took part in MOTL 2024 and were humbled by the experience — both in witnessing some of the grim apparatus of the Holocaust and in receiving gratitude from fellow marchers for their presence. On behalf of the New Jersey Police delegation, Malik even planted a stake honoring the victims of the Holocaust along the now disused train tracks that once carried millions to their death on freight cars.

Those are three examples of superb leadership that we all should emulate.