{"id":88098,"date":"2025-06-05T04:48:55","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T09:48:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=88098"},"modified":"2025-06-05T04:48:55","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T09:48:55","slug":"boulders-very-shocked-and-very-traumatized-jewish-community-takes-stock-of-its-losses-and-its-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/boulders-very-shocked-and-very-traumatized-jewish-community-takes-stock-of-its-losses-and-its-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Boulder\u2019s \u2018very shocked and very traumatized\u2019 Jewish community takes stock of its losses, and its strength"},"content":{"rendered":"

By GRACE GILSON<\/p>\n

(JTA) \u2014 Three days after six of his congregants were burned by a man who yelled \u201cFree Palestine\u201d as he threw Molotov cocktails, Rabbi Marc Soloway said his Jewish community remained \u201cvery shocked and very traumatized.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Members of the Boulder, Colorado, Jewish community gathered in the wake of an attack on local Jews calling for attention to Israeli hostages in Gaza, June 4, 2025. (Screenshot)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Soloway, who helms Congregation Bonai Shalom in Boulder, Colorado, rushed to the hospital after learning about the attack. He often attended the Run for Their Lives, a weekly rally to call attention to the Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza, in downtown Boulder but had skipped it on Sunday to prepare for the Shavuot holiday that began at sundown and lasted until Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

Celebrations planned for the holiday gave way to comforting the injured, consoling the traumatized and becoming a voice and face for a community in crisis.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been brutal, agonizing, just shocking, unbelievable, just so many emotions, a lot of grief and pain and sadness, and also quite significant amounts of anger and just trauma,\u201d Soloway said in an interview with the Jewish Telegraphic Agency on Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

He said that the fact such an attack could take place in 2025 in Boulder is \u201cincomprehensible.\u201d <\/p>\n

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Congregation Bonai Shalom Rabbi Marc Soloway comforts attendees during a community gathering at the site of an attack against a group people holding a vigil for Israeli hostages in Gaza in Boulder, Colorado, June 4, 2025. (Chet Strange \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Fifteen people between the ages of 25 and 88, as well as one dog, were injured during the attack Sunday, officials said on Wednesday after learning about more people who had been hurt but not hospitalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was someone who was literally setting fire to Jewish bodies. It\u2019s just the most horrific thing to imagine,\u201d Soloway said. \u201cThere were literally Jewish bodies lying on the ground in flames, and it was a pure hate attack, pure act of terrorism, pure antisemitic attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Wednesday evening, a crowd filled the Boulder Jewish Community Center for a community gathering that included testimonials from people who participated in Sunday\u2019s march and witnessed or were injured in the attack, songs and poems, and a prayer for the healing of those injured. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that resilience, strength and pride is who we are as Coloradans, as Boulder County residents and as Jews,\u201d said Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is a member of Boulder\u2019s Jewish community. Earlier on Wednesday, Polis had hosted an interfaith gathering at the site of the attack on the Pearl Street Mall.<\/p>\n

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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks during a community gathering at the site of an attack against a group holding a vigil for Israeli hostages in Gaza in Boulder, Colorado, June 4, 2025.(Chet Strange \/ AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Several local rabbis appeared at both events, many noting that the community had shown remarkable strength in the wake of the attack. \u201cThere\u2019s been an outpouring of love and support from within the Jewish community, but there\u2019s also been a tremendous outpouring of love from outside the Jewish community,\u201d Soloway said on stage.<\/p>\n

He also led the crowd in reciting a maxim of Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, the founder Renewal Judaism who spent the last two decades of his life in Boulder. \u201cThe only way to get it together is\u2026\u201d he said, pausing to allow attendees to end the sentence in unison: \u201cTogether!\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the event, Soloway said the attack had compounded feelings of isolation that many in Boulder\u2019s Jewish community have felt over the last year and a half, during the Israel-Hamas war. City Council meetings in the largely progressive city have been so swamped by pro-Palestinian activists seeking to speak and demand a ceasefire resolution that the council adopted new rules and moved many meetings online. <\/p>\n

\u201cMost of us in the Jewish community here in Boulder have been very progressive and aligned and partnered with a lot of progressive people. And now some of the worst hateful rhetoric is coming from the far left, not the far right,\u201d said Soloway. \u201cIt\u2019s very confusing and hurtful. There\u2019s a sense of betrayal.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday night, the City of Boulder issued a statement acknowledging that the firebombing was a \u201ctargeted, antisemitic attack.\u201d <\/p>\n

One City Council member, Taishya Adams, refused to sign the acknowledgement, telling the Boulder Reporting Lab that she wanted the attack to be characterized as \u201canti-Zionist\u201d instead.<\/p>\n

Soloway said Adams\u2019 decision not to sign the letter felt \u201cincredibly painful\u201d to him and others in the community.<\/p>\n

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