Author name: LifeZette

Denver’s Jewish community is sounding the alarm after democratic socialist Melat Kiros pulled off a stunning primary win in Colorado’s 1st Congressional District, knocking off longtime Rep. Diana DeGette and sending another loud message about where the activist left is dragging the Democratic Party.

Kiros, 29, was celebrated by progressive groups after defeating the 15 term incumbent in June.

But for Jewish leaders in Denver, the victory did not feel like some charming grassroots moment. It felt like a warning flare.

Their concern centers on Kiros’ record of inflammatory remarks about Israel and the Oct. 7 terror attacks.

She has described those attacks as “inevitable,” accused Israel of genocide and apartheid, and initially refused to call a deadly Boulder firebombing an antisemitic attack.

Rabbi Menachem Lehrfield, director of the Jewish Outreach Initiative in Denver, said the result left many observant Jews feeling exposed in their own city.

After posting online about his fear, he was met with antisemitic comments, then wrote publicly about how simply wearing a yarmulke in Denver now feels dangerous.

One day later, Lehrfield said that fear became painfully real.

“I was walking down the street right here, right outside this building, and somebody rolled down their window and yelled, ‘dirty Jew,’ to me,” he told Fox News Digital.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen next time. I don’t know if next time, instead of hurling vile words, they’ll be hurling an explosive like the person who killed Karen Diamond in Boulder. I don’t know if they’re going to do something to me or my family or my community. There’s a real fear that we’re living with,” he said.

“What I’m most afraid of is the fact that so many of the people in my community, so many people in the district, voted for her,” Lehrfield added.

That is the uncomfortable part Democrats do not want to discuss while their socialist wing keeps getting treated like the future of the party.

The fear is not theoretical in Colorado.

In June 2025, 82 year old Karen Diamond was killed and a dozen others were injured when prosecutors say Mohamed Sabry Soliman threw Molotov cocktails into a peaceful pro Israel gathering on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall.

Authorities charged Soliman, an illegal immigrant, with murder and hate crimes.

Prosecutors said he yelled “Free Palestine” and spent a year planning the attack to “kill all Zionist people.”

Yet when Kiros was asked about the Boulder attack during a 9News interview, she condemned the violence but would not call it antisemitic, saying she did not “know what was in the heart of the perpetrator.”

That kind of evasive word salad might play well in left wing activist circles, but Jewish leaders in Denver heard it loud and clear.

Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, said Kiros’ answer deeply wounded the community.

“Kiros’s inability to call the Boulder firebombing an antisemitic attack was extremely frustrating and difficult for our community to hear,” he told Fox News Digital.

“The impact here was pretty clear: A Jewish person was killed, over a dozen were hurt, and it was one of the biggest and most prominent antisemitic attacks on Jews throughout the world,” Rattiner said.

He added that the failure to show basic care and empathy was “incredibly hurtful to hear.”

Rattiner said he met with Kiros before the primary and thought the conversation had been constructive.

Then, he said, she appeared on anti Israel streamer Hasan Piker’s livestream and “did the opposite of everything that we had discussed.”

“I had asked for nuance and she spoke in absolutist positions,” Rattiner said.

“I had asked for empathy and compassion, and she seemed to only allow that for one side of the conflict.”

Susan Rona, regional director for the Anti Defamation League Mountain States Region, warned that political rhetoric has real world consequences.

“When political leaders refuse to name something as a targeted antisemitic attack, it creates some distrust of leadership and causes additional fear because it minimizes and causes dehumanization of Jews, which leads to violence,” she said.

“We’re seeing that pretty clearly in Colorado,” Rona continued.

“There’s a direct line to all this antisemitic rhetoric we’re hearing and violence happening toward the Jewish community.”

WATCH:

According to the ADL, antisemitic incidents in Colorado have surged to the third highest level recorded since the group began tracking them in 1979.

The group counted 167 incidents in 2025, a staggering jump from fewer than 12 in the region a decade earlier.

Kiros’ campaign has been backed by the Democratic Socialists of America, Justice Democrats, and the Working Families Party.

The DSA has embraced Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel and has declared Zionism equivalent to racism, which tells voters plenty about the ideological neighborhood we are dealing with here.

A Jewish independent candidate, Dr. Shimon Blau, has now entered the general election race.

He told the Denverite, “I believe in human rights for everyone,” adding, “I am absolutely not a socialist.”

Republican Christy Peterson is also running, though the district remains heavily Democratic.

Still, Kiros’ rise has already exposed a serious rupture inside the left, where anti Israel rhetoric is no longer fringe coffeehouse chatter but an organizing principle for candidates seeking power in Congress.

Kiros, Blau, and the DSA did not return Fox News Digital’s requests for comment.

Funny how the loudest political movements often go quiet when asked to answer for the fear they leave behind.