I grew up in the Boulder Jewish community — I was Bat Mitzvahed at Har Hashem, and was raised in close community with our chavurah — or Jewish family group — people who I’ve known now for nearly 25 years.

Some other credentials: My mother grew up in Israel, and our house was steeped in Israeli culture. Also, my uncle was actually the first to refuse to serve in the occupied territories after the First Intifada and the first to be arrested for it. And the family consensus is that we’re pretty proud of that. Just so you know.

If I were able to chat with the man who threw Molotov cocktails at the marchers in Boulder on June 1 or the one who shot the two people in D.C., I’d have one main question: What’s your actual strategy here? What’s your goal?

Because whatever they were trying to accomplish, they succeeded only in making American Jews an easy target for antisemites and a tool for the fascists currently in charge of the U.S. and Israel.

I was initially exasperated at the response of Jewish institutions all over the U.S. beefing up security in the wake of the D.C. shooting. Come on. You think some individual act of violence in D.C. will cause you any trouble in Boulder? Ridiculous! And dammit, now there really is some justifiable fear in Jewish communities across the country. You know what fear does to people? Fear makes people rationalize the most heinous acts in the name of self-defense. All in the name of combating a kind of antisemitism that doesn’t actually exist.

To my fellow Jews, you are in danger, but from your own government, and from the Israeli government whose actions give an excuse to justify real antisemitism.

You’re in danger from yourselves as you continue to conflate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, or to insist that to be truly Jewish one must also be a Zionist. This conflation is what allows the genocidal actions of Israel to make your fear of violence against you, all the way in Boulder, sadly somewhat reasonable.

Do you not see? Boulder Jews, American Jews, do you not see you are being used? And once your usefulness is done, the insidious antisemitism you are choosing to ignore will be turned on you. On us. The move now is to speak up, refuse to become a tool of far-right authoritarians. The way to protect ourselves in the long run is to demand freedom and safety for all. Our causes are connected. Your anger at the Trump administration ends at its support of the murder of Palestinian children? You fear for the safety of your children under far-right policies in the U.S. but you think 55,000 dead Palestinians is a reasonable price to pay for your imagined safety? No. Stand up to the true dangers. The rising fascism and white supremacy in your own backyard and around the world, including Israel. Protect yourself by demanding an end to the United State’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.

The attacker in Boulder did not have a well-thought-out strategy, but we can, if we unite around the real threats to our long-term safety.

Maia Rosenberg lives in Boulder.