An 82-year-old Jewish woman was just burnt alive in America

I write to you today from a place of profound grief and escalating fear.

I, Rabbi Shmuley, have walked through fire. I know what it feels like to have hate raised against you, not just verbally, but physically — openly, unapologetically, and, in my case, with threats that echoed the deepest terrors of our ancestral history.

On December 1, at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach, I was confronted not by polite discourse but by a man shouting “Free Palestine” and “Allahu Akbar,” threatening horrendous physical violence against me. There was no arrest. No interrogation by the Miami Beach police, who will not even answer when I ask why they took no action, despite the tens of millions of people who watched video around the world and were horrified by the attack. Indeed, the only legal outcome was a lawsuit by the hotel owner, billlionaire Jeffrey Soffer, designed to silence me — an example of how those who speak up can find themselves ensnared rather than protected.

And now, in Boulder, Colorado, the unthinkable has happened.

On June 1, a pro-Israel, peaceful solidarity march — organized to pray for hostages kidnapped from Israel by Hamas — turned into a scene out of a nightmare. Twenty demonstrators walked the Pearl Street Mall when Mohamed Sabry Soliman, disguised as a gardener, approached and hurled Molotov cocktails into the crowd while yelling “Free Palestine.” He ignited flames that left people — women and men aged 25 to 88 — burned, some needing helicopter evacuation to burn units. Among them was an 82‑year‑old Holocaust survivor. Sixteen incendiary devices were recovered later.

Incredibly, Karen Diamond, an 82‑year‑old grandmother, died of her injuries on June 25, succumbing not to illness, but to hatred incarnate. Imagine it. In the year 2025, Jews are being burned alive in America as if it were Auschwitz in 1944. Thirty‑year-old Jews may die, God forbid, in car accidents, but no Jew should burn alive in Colorado in 2025. Yet Karen did.

Federal prosecutors have proceeded with a dozen hate‑crime charges. Colorado state courts have filed 118 counts, including attempted first‑degree murder. The FBI is treating this as a terror attack.

The Jewish community — and all Americans — ought to be shocked and alarmed. The echoes of Treblinka are not metaphorical or literary. When Jews are targeted for extinction or fierce violence solely because of their identity, beneath the legal camouflage of “political stance,” we are seeing Holocaust-level hatred. As one victim gasped, “It didn’t seem real even as it was happening.”

This is not weakened rhetoric. This is real blood. Jewish women and men are being torched to death on our streets in 2025 America. What is worse: it is becoming shockingly normalized. It is as if we have trained ourselves to grow numb to it.

In New York City we will, in all likelihood, have an antisemitic Islamist mayor come November.

Zohran Mamdani, a 33‑year‑old democratic socialist and member of the New York State Assembly, is now the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor — potentially making him NYC’s first Islamist and democratic-socialist mayor this November. But his past positions and rhetoric reveal a troubling pattern of antisemitism disguised as anti‑Zionism.

Mamdani co‑founded his college’s Students for Justice in Palestine chapter, consistently supports the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement, and sponsored the “Not on Our Dime Act,” which would strip nonprofits of tax-exempt status if they support Israeli settlements — or even broader Israeli military actions. This singles out Israel and unfairly burdens Jewish charities.

Mamdani declined to cosponsor annual resolutions celebrating Israel’s founding and Holocaust remembrance from 2022 to 2025, though he later said he voted for the Holocaust resolution. Still, many saw this refusal as dismissive toward Jewish history.

In late 2024, he openly labeled Israel’s military actions in Gaza a “genocide” and falsely accused the country of war crimes — statements that evoked alarm in Jewish circles for weaponizing Holocaust rhetoric.

Mamdani refused to repudiate the slogan “globalize the intifada,” instead casting it as symbolic and rooted in calls for equality. He claimed it references anti‑Nazi resistance, citing Holocaust Museum translations.

The response was swift and damning. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum declared his usage “outrageous and especially offensive to survivors.”

Jewish leaders, including former U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch, and non-Jewish friends of the Jews like Rep. Ritchie Torres accused him of endorsing incitement to violence.

The ADL warned that his primary win has emboldened “anti‑Zionists” to amplify hateful rhetoric.

Mamdani and supporters insist he is not antisemitic. He condemns the October 7 Hamas attacks and declared them “horrific war crimes.” He condemns antisemitism and supports funding hate‑crime prevention.

But his relentless criticism of Israel — absence of Jewish symbols, refusal to back resolutions, embrace of inflammatory slogans — crosses from critique into enabling antisemitic attitudes. Jewish leaders argue his approach dehumanizes Israel and by extension its Jewish supporters.

New York is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel. Alarm is rising including the possibility of a “mass exodus” of Jews. Concerns place this candidacy in the same category as anti‑Jewish political shifts in Europe.

Many New Yorkers worry the mayor’s office could become unwelcoming — an environment where opposition to Israel bleeds into hostility toward Jewish identity

Mamdani, now the Democratic nominee, will face Republicans and independents in November. That general election will test whether Jewish voters coalesce around other options. This race spotlights a broader tension — the fine line between legitimate political criticism of Israel and tropes that morph into antisemitic dog whistles.

We have become spectators to self-immolation — not of our own making, but of our neighbors. We grew up under the notion that America is different, that the values of liberty, inclusivity, and justice protect us. But the inaction of authorities — whether the hotel owner Jeffrey Soffer who sues me, or the police who failed to arrest my attacker in Miami — suggests that we are not safe in the shadows, let alone in public spaces.

And it’s systemic: the Boulder attacker — an Egyptian national who overstayed his visa, even had his wife and five children detained only to be released — declared he wanted to “kill all Zionist people” and would say it again. Not political posturing. Not nuanced critique. An outright exterminationist statement.

This rising tide continues unchecked. More Jewish communal spaces, synagogues, schools, and individuals are being targeted. In Washington, an Israeli embassy official was shot and murdered with his fiancee. Firebombs have been thrown at politicians. The narrative shifts toward “free Palestine,” but the real price is paid by innocent Jews — our bodies charred, our spirits crushed, our stories threatened with erasure.

It is time to speak plainly: this is no longer about free speech, free protest, or foreign policy. This is about Jew‑hatred plain and simple. It is about trying to extinguish our right to exist and worship, to walk our streets, to speak our names.

We are not scapegoats for the misdeeds of foreign governments. We are not proxies. We are American citizens and residents, proud and patriotic; many of us born here, serving here, raising families here.

So what must be done?

We must demand justice with clarity and urgency. The Boulder attack cannot morph into “political violence.” It is antisemitic terror. Prosecutors must not relax, courts must prosecute with full weight, legislators must strengthen hate crime laws, and federal agencies, including the FBI and DHS, must escalate protection for Jewish spaces and individuals.

Victims like Karen Diamond should not die only to be eulogized. We must see convictions, sentences commensurate with attempted genocide, and real deterrence.

Jewish communities must be empowered to protect themselves. Security at synagogues, Jewish schools, community centers, kosher markets — I’ve long advocated for local, regional, and federal grants to underwrite security. These must be expanded immediately. But security is not enough. We must train communities in emergency response, fundraising strategies, and technological defense.

We must confront denial and deflection.

Too many insist that this is “anti‑Zionism.” Nonsense. Anti‑Zionism is political; antisemitism is murder. Saying “Free Palestine” as you hurl firebombs at Jews is hate, pure and simple. The law must reflect that. Silence breeds complicity. Distinction without differentiation is dangerous.

We must invigorate moral leadership across the board. From the White House to local town halls, from editorial boards to social media platforms — it is time for moral clarity. This cannot remain a partisan fight. Jewish safety is an American value. Leaders must denounce, proactively and persistently, this growing phenomenon of Jew‑hatred.

We must rebuild our narratives of belonging.

I speak from deep roots in Jewish tradition: we have survived exile, persecution, pogroms, and genocide — but we thrive. Our Torah teaches not to recoil from darkness, but to kindle light. We must enlist allies: Christians, Muslims, people of conscience, to stand with us. Interfaith solidarity must be renewed, visible, and loud.

We must remember and publicly celebrate our identity — and pass it on.

When my own life was threatened, I revisited the story of our ancestors in Auschwitz, of my grandparents in Iran and their endless prayer that we not vanish. That the light of Jewish life would endure — and flourish — amid the world’s darkest fires. We carry that light. And we must carry it forward.

And now, to you, my fellow Americans. If you remained silent when Karen Diamond burned, when I was threatened, when Jewish children feared crossing the street — what will you whisper next time you see violence born of hate? Will you speak? Will you stand?

Our Jewish community is not asking for privilege, but for the right to live. The right to pray. The right to raise children unashamed, unthreatened, unburned.

Look me in the eye when I greet you in synagogue. When I teach you Torah. Know that I stand before you not a victim, but a witness. And from this witness, a call.

We must do more. And we must do it now. Otherwise, the shadows will lengthen, and our light — America’s light — will dim.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood is a writer, speaker, and activist.