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A delegation of 15 senior law enforcement officials from the Northeast, including four from New Jersey, attended a trip to Israel in November, where they had a first-hand look at Israel's counterterrorism strategies and tactics.

Sponsored by the Anti-Defamation League, the trip included meetings with counterterrorism experts and senior law enforcement officials, as well as visits to Israel's borders with Syria and Lebanon and the site of recent missile attacks in Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip.

State Police Counterterrorism Bureau Lt. Kevin Tormey was one of the attendees. "It was an outstanding trip, a real eye-opening experience in both dealing with military and police in Israel as seeing the history and historic sites."

Robert Sbaraglio, captain of Newark police, also was in attendance. He said the trip was "better than I could imagine. They were really good to us."

The other New Jersey participants were Special Agent Weysan Dunn with the state division of the Federal Bureau of Investigations and Robert Lawson, chief of police for Lakewood Township. Other participating law enforcement officials included police chiefs, commissioners, and homeland security personnel from Massachusetts, New York and Connecticut.

During the weeklong event, which concluded on Nov. 24, participants met with their counterparts in the Israel National Police, Israel Defense Forces, and Israeli security and intelligence communities. The group met with the highest levels of Israel's police and security establishment who play a central role in directing counterterrorism operations on a daily basis. Sessions covered a range of topics relating to preventing and responding to terrorist attacks, including information sharing, intelligence gathering, bomb disposal, search and rescue operations, intercepting suicide bombers, working with the media, public awareness, the use of technology, and the effect of terror on the Israeli public.

"The attack in Mumbai is a painful reminder of the need for constant vigilance in the face of terrorism," said Etzion Neuer, regional director of the ADL's New Jersey office. "As first responders to any incident, our New Jersey law enforcement must have the tools to prevent future acts of terrorism and the resources to respond if an attack occurs. Working in a country that faces a constant threat of terrorism, Israeli law enforcement officials are uniquely equipped to share information, strategies, and tactics with their American counterparts."

Tormey, a 23-year veteran, agreed. "Terrorism is real everyday over there," he said. "Yet, there is a resiliency of the Jewish people to live a normal life. People were out on the street shopping, dining, all sorts of things."

He compared their experiences to those the United States faces when dealing with terrorism, noting, "our last one was truly over seven years ago."

"If it doesn't happen, we lose focus a little," Tormey said. "We need to keep strong. It's not a matter of 'if,' it's a matter of 'when'."

Sbaraglio, a 25-year police veteran, noted an incident in 2004. "A laptop was discovered in an apartment in Iraq from a known terrorist. In the laptop, there were plans to blow up the Prudential headquarters, in Newark."

The sergeant noted Newark is the largest city in New Jersey. "We get overshadowed by New York," he said.

Still, he noted the size of Israel, and the size of New Jersey, are comparable. "It's amazing how many closed circuit televisions they have," the sergeant said. "There are 29,000 members in the Israeli police. Nine thousand are assigned to do border patrol. But, they're all in the same agency. In New Jersey, we're broken up into about 500 municipalities. We don't communicate on the same frequencies. They're on the same frequencies so everyone knows about something right away."

Sbaraglio said overall intelligence information sharing is "definitely a lot more cohesive in Israel than in New Jersey."

"One of the problems we have here is we don't share information as much as we should or could," he said. "Their police personnel have a mandatory three years of service. They don't get paid a lot but a lot stay on anyway. There's national pride. Here, some people like law enforcement, but some just do it as a job. There, they seemed a lot more enthusiastic."

Besides learning counterterrorism tactics, attendees got the chance to see many things of cultural and historical significance in Israel, including Nazareth, the Dead Sea, the Holocaust museum at Yad Vashem, and the Golan Heights. "They wanted to show us the country, too," Sbaraglio said.