Dan Grossman’s first day on Denver7’s morning anchor desk was Monday, May 26. Just a week after he started, Grossman broke from objective news reporting and went on the air with a very personal message:
“I am scared. Those were two of the first words I heard when I got home from work on Monday. The hug I offered felt different. It was longer, tighter, and I could feel the weight of her pain as two silent tears rolled down her cheek. We looked at each other and I said, ‘It’s OK. I’m scared too.’ I never thought I’d hear myself say those words.”
Grossman was describing the fear and anguish he and his loved one felt after the anti-Semitic firebombing attack on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall just the day before.
He continued: “I grew up in the northeast, went to Syracuse University — at the time one of the most Jewish universities in the country. I never really felt like a target.
“Frankly, I never felt anything other than completely accepted, but that was before October 7th, before curiosity started to feel like skepticism, before conversations started to feel like interrogations, before my last name started to matter.
“It is not a hunch to say this feeling is shared by most Jews in our country. It’s a fact, and it’s discussed every time a Holocaust survivor and others are burned by Molotov cocktails, and others or Israelis are shot outside a museum in DC.”
This young news anchor was baring his soul to a largely non-Jewish audience whose views he does not know.
He went on to say everyone has a right to opinions about the Middle East, “but you aren’t entitled to use them as justification for anti-Semitic cowardice disguised as activism.” He encouraged his viewers to check on their Jewish friends to make them feel valued.
Kol hakavod, Dan Grossman. Thank you.
© IJN 2025
