“She is truly genetic garbage much like vermin and should not be allowed to procreate,” one email reads.

“The Jews … are lower than animals,” says another.

Yet another: “These vermin (Jews) are … beneath contempt.”

Even publishing these vile remarks is painful — why give oxygen to such contemptible hate? Why not hope that it will wilt in the dark shame of silence? Because this bigotry is living in our community and it is harming our friends and families and neighbors — and our leaders.

These emails were sent to City Council member Tara Winer, as well as others on the council. And these examples, according to Winer, are only a small sample. In a phone conversation, she said this sort of harassment has been ongoing, but has picked up recently; in one four-day stretch, she said she got roughly 60 emails, many hate-filled, from one individual.

The issues at play here are extremely complicated. On the one hand, there is the legacy of centuries’ worth of violence that has been wrought upon Jewish communities across the globe. On another, there is the morally and ethically complicated conflict between Israel and Hamas. And finally, we have the ongoing degradation of political civility here in the U.S. that has seen threats and harassment of our political leaders surge in recent times.

This particular chapter started on Oct. 7, when Hamas launched a devastating attack on Israeli civilians, killing more than 1,200 and taking hundreds more hostage. Israel’s response has left more than 30,000 civilians dead, with most being women and children.

In the U.S., the conflict took over our news cycle. It dominated social media. Statements were made and retracted and criticized. University leaders lost their jobs. Protesters shut down campuses. Hundreds of college students were arrested.

For Winer, things took a turn when the Boulder City Council refused to draft a pcease-fire resolution. The seven council members who voted against the resolution had varying reasoning but seemed relatively united in the stance that foreign policy is not the purview of a local government in Boulder, Colorado. (It is also worth mentioning that there is a city code against acting on foreign policy.)

After the vote, Winer expected those seeking a cease-fire resolution to take the issue elsewhere, to the state or national level — places where action might have more meaning.

They didn’t. Protesters kept showing up, and the situation intensified. Council meetings were disrupted — repeatedly — and the volume and tenor of the disagreement became more confrontational. Not only was it taking away from the council’s ability to address local issues, but it was starting to make Winer feel uneasy — and for her friends and family to feel scared for her.

Because on top of the unrest in the council chambers, there were the emails.

“You can’t really tell if you should feel safe or not,” Winer said. “When is something just hate speech that is allowed under the law, and when does it cross the line to harassment? I don’t know. How does anyone know?”

The point here is not to shame protesters or take sides in this extremely complex conflict, but rather to give voice to the nuance that we as a community must remember how to disagree without vilifying those on the other side, without resorting to hateful rhetoric and without dehumanizing anyone. Disagreement is important — and inevitable — but we must be able to do so with decency and civility.

If we malign those we disagree with, how can we ever expect them to see things from our perspective or empathize with our experiences?

For some, this standpoint might not comport with the purpose of protest. Protest, of course, is meant to disrupt and discomfort. That is how it grabs attention. That is how it facilitates change. One need only look at the Vietnam War protests to understand that protesting is how those without a voice get a platform and a voice and make change.

And there is no question that protesting is an important part of democracy, and protesting the actions of a government — any government — should be a fundamental right.

But there is a difference — and a stark one — between protest that disrupts and discomforts, and protest that makes someone feel unsafe because of an immutable trait.

The Oct. 7 attack by Hamas on innocent Israelis was devastating. And Israel’s retaliatory invasion has also been devastating. The humanitarian aid crisis in Gaza is devastating. The fear instilled by an act of terrorism that comes to color the vision of daily life is devastating. The antisemitism and anti-Muslim hate that have been born of this conflict are devastating.

War — and all the atrocities that come with it — is devastating.

To recognize this devastation is not a justification for anyone’s actions. Nor is it meant to absolve any perpetrators of guilt. The complexities of this conflict are far beyond the scope of our expertise as Boulder journalists. We do not know how to end the violence or how to dispel a terrorist organization (or ideology). But we do know that making our neighbors feel unsafe or unwelcome and using hateful rhetoric — or allowing such rhetoric to exist within a movement — is not going to solve anything.

We also know that we all have a capacity for empathy that can stretch beyond that which we are familiar with — to the other side of the aisle or the border or the river — and that empathy is, most often, necessary for the reconciliation of conflict.

It should go without saying that we must all be willing and prepared to accept the fact that not everyone agrees with us — even on extremely emotional issues. We must also be able to disagree without hating those we disagree with, without using hateful rhetoric and without making anyone in our community feel unsafe. We cannot confront challenges to our beliefs or ideas that make us uncomfortable by lashing out with hatred.

And when hate does arise — no matter where from — we must always be willing to condemn it, to isolate it, and to ensure it does not have oxygen to thrive. Hate has no place in our politics or on our campuses or in our communities.

Council member Winer’s experience is heartbreaking but is not unique. Antisemitism has risen sharply. So too has anti-Muslim bias. But this is not a reality we should accept.

Hate cannot be eradicated overnight. No matter our collective might, we will not be able to shun bigotry to the oblivion of irrelevance where it belongs anytime soon. The battle against intolerance will take time. And it will take resolve.

We’re never going to agree on everything, but we must agree that hate has no place in Boulder.

Gary Garrison for the Editorial Board