(RNS) — City leaders lit the iconic Boulder Star on Colorado’s Flagstaff Mountain on Monday (June 2) to honor the Jewish community and those injured a day earlier in a Molotov cocktail assault on demonstrators marching in support of Israeli hostages.
A vigil titled Coming Together is planned for Wednesday at the Jewish Community Center. And the Boulder Jewish Festival, planned for Sunday, will go on.
But Boulder Jews are feeling terrified after the incident in which a man shouting “free Palestine” hurled Molotov cocktails at a group of mostly Jewish demonstrators. The group gathers weekly outside the Boulder County Courthouse to support awareness of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza by Hamas. Twelve people were injured; eight were hospitalized with burns. At least two were flown to a nearby burn unit.
How many show up to these and other events — and how many will feel reassured by efforts in their community to come together and heal — remains to be seen. American Jewish leaders say they are alarmed by a resurgence of violent antisemitism. And they are afraid.
“We’re seeing this as a wake-up call, even more than a call, a tsunami, perhaps, a watershed moment in Jewish history that we were not expecting,” said Rabbi Boaz …