As a child, I thought little about the security team stationed outside my north-west London Jewish primary school. I didn’t spend much time asking why there were guards at each entrance to our synagogue every Saturday, either. Seeing my mum stood with a walkie-talkie, patrolling the front gates through the classroom window didn’t seem out of the ordinary; my dad leaving the Shabbat service halfway through to stand outside and keep us safe felt run of the mill.

Granted, much of this was the innocence of childhood, but in recent years the threat of violence towards the Jewish community has felt increasingly real across the world. The number of antisemitic incidents across the US as a whole rose 57% in 2017; In Britain, the Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 727 antisemitic incidents in the first six months of 2018 – the second highest figure recorded in more than two decades. When news broke of the vicious slaughtering of congregants in a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Jews all around the world weren’t only shaken by the violence. We were shaken because we all know how easily it could have been us targeted.

The prospect of similar attacks on Jews elsewhere feels much closer today than just a few days before

The reality is an attack like the one in Pittsburgh has seemed impending for some time. Antisemitism – both dog-whistle and explicit – has made a return to the mainstream on both sides of the Atlantic. From conspiracy theories to straight-up fascism, antisemites are increasingly emboldened. Whatever one believes about Trump’s position on Jewish people, one can’t deny that he has been content to indulge antisemitic views. The president has regularly courted the support of far-right groups including neo-Nazis, and was disgracefully slow to disown support offered to him by the likes of the KKK’s David Duke. He told a Jewish Republican crowd: you won’t support me because I don’t want your money; he tweeted Hillary Clinton next to a star of David and cash. When fascists and anti-racists marched through Charlottesville? He said both sides were to blame.

Trump’s administration and its supporters have added to the chorus of bigoted ideas being spread about George Soros. The Jewish billionaire has long been the target of despicable antisemitic attacks, including those by the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán – the very same Hungarian administration that Conservative party MEPs voted to protect in September this year. It’s surely no coincidence that Soros was one of those targeted by pipe bombs earlier this week.

The United States has long been considered one of the safest places for Jews to live in peace and comfort. This act of terror is a stark reminder of how quickly this can change. The far right, just like radical Islamist terrorists, is organising across international borders. The prospect of similar attacks on Jews elsewhere feels much closer today than just a few days before.

As I scrolled through my social media accounts this morning, a status from a trainee rabbi friend of mine stood out among the outpourings of sadness and grief. Normally, when a Jewish person dies, he wrote, we say a prayer: Baruch dayan ha’emet – blessed is the true judge. It’s an acknowledgement of the fact we understand that God, a higher being, works in ways we cannot understand. It’s a nod to the notion that however painful our grief is, the ways of life and death go beyond our understanding. But when Jews are killed by antisemites in attacks such as the one in Pittsburgh, there’s an alternative phrase it’s customary to recite: Hashem yikkom dama – may God avenge their blood. To my mind this is because violent acts of hatred can’t be written off simply as something that elicits sadness: rather we must respond directly to ensure such horrors can’t be normalised lest they happen again and again.

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It’s not a matter of simple vengeance – the rule of law will ensure that the killer is held to account. To truly be vengeful in these circumstances is to continue to be unapologetic in practising and celebrating what the far right attacks our communities for: whether that be our religion, our skin colour, our sexuality, our gender or our race. But to do so, free from fear of violence or persecution, minorities rely on more than silent support.

Jews make up just 0.2% of the global population. To take on antisemitism – and to protect ourselves in a time of rising hatred and danger – we’ll rely on more than condolences and otherwise empty words.

That means refusing to excuse hatred for political expediency; it means mobilising when the far right marches in emboldened efforts to renew its support. It means not turning moments like this into debates about Palestine. It means linking the dots and seeing the correlation between all oppressed groups being vilified, abused and attacked.

Diaspora Jewish communities understand how precarious our safety feels wherever we find ourselves; centuries of pogroms, assaults and state-sanctioned genocide ensure we’ll never be able to forget. I, and all Jews, look forward to the day we aren’t required to stand outside our communal spaces to keep watch. Until then, we must sadly once again take solace from the stories of Cable Street – where fascists were pushed back in London in 1936 and where a vigil will be held tonight. Defeating racism takes time and perseverance. We must stand shoulder to shoulder with our neighbours; demand better from our political leaders and protect each other from what may next come. It’s this that will avenge the lives lost so grotesquely in Pittsburgh on Shabbat.

• Michael Segalov is a contributing editor at Huck magazine, a freelance journalist and author