This past weekend, hate came to Boulder, Colorado in the form of firebombs.
As peaceful demonstrators gathered at the Pearl Street Mall to call for the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for more than 600 days, a man attacked the crowd with a flamethrower and Molotov cocktails. Several people were injured, including a Holocaust survivor.
The attacker shouted, “End Zionists!” and “Palestine is free!”, and later told police that he had planned the attack for a year, targeting what he called a “Zionist group.”
Sadly, this was not an isolated incident.
Just days earlier, a gunman opened fire at a Jewish event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., killing a young couple, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim. In handcuffs, he shouted, “Free, free Palestine!”
These were premeditated, ideologically motivated attacks. And they’re part of a deeply disturbing pattern: a nationwide surge in antisemitism, now turning murderous.
These attacks didn’t happen in a vacuum. The slogans of the anti-Israel movement – “Free Palestine,” “From the river to the sea,” “By any means necessary,” “Globalize the intifada” – aren’t abstract calls. They are rallying cries for violence. They have been chanted in a relentless drumbeat on college campuses, at public protests, and even in city halls.
Words matter. And in today’s hyper-charged environment, slogans that dehumanize Jews and demonize Zionism are not just dangerous, they are deadly.
The victims in Boulder and Washington, D.C. were targeted because they were Jewish. Their assailants were radicalized by ideologies that celebrate October 7th as "resistance" and justify violence against Jews under the guise of political liberation. Adherents to these ideologies reveled in the slaughter and rape committed by their precious “resistance” group, Hamas, on that day, vicariously taking part in the pogrom.
By demonizing Zionists – with zero knowledge of what Zionism actually is – they have declared entire communities to be legitimate targets. And now we are left with the horror of elderly Jews being firebombed at a peaceful event. Understandably, American Jews are left feeling shaken and vulnerable.
It is this climate of hate and moral confusion that we must confront.
That urgency is precisely why this Monday, June 9, in partnership with the Combat Antisemitism Movement, Boulder Mayor Aaron Brockett is convening an emergency regional summit of mayors and other elected officials in his city, which is now marked by tragedy but also poised for leadership. Local and state officials from across the region will come together to confront antisemitism with seriousness, strategy, and resolve.
Why mayors? Because mayors are on the front lines in the fight against Jew-hatred, which is being waged in our neighborhoods, our schools, our parks, and our city centers. Mayors set the tone for civil discourse. They direct law enforcement responses. They shape community engagement. They stand with their communities in the face of hate. Their leadership is immediate, visible, and vital.
At the summit, these leaders will build practical tools: how to train police departments to recognize hate, how to respond swiftly to bias incidents, how to educate communities, and how to push back against rhetoric that radicalizes.
This is not just a Jewish issue; it’s a societal one, and the battle against it cannot be waged by Jews alone. It’s a metastatic societal problem, and as such it requires a response from all levels of society.
And our response must be one of moral clarity, not ambiguity. It must be one of action, not “thoughts and prayers.” It must be one of leadership, not appeasement.
We must recognize that antisemitism today wears many faces: far-right conspiracy theories, far-left denial of Jewish identity and peoplehood, Islamist supremacism, and radicalized ideologies that romanticize violence as resistance. And we must reject them all with equal force.
The stakes could not be higher. In Boulder, Washington, D.C., and across the country, Jewish Americans are asking a simple question: Will our leaders stand up?
The officials gathering in Boulder are answering with a resounding yes. Now, it’s time for the rest of us to follow their lead.
Lisa Katz is the Chief Government Affairs Officer at the Combat Antisemitism Movement.
