Boulder Jewish Festival proceeds with enhanced security and focus on healing after attack

BOULDER, Colo. (AP) — The group that was attacked last weekend in Boulder, Colorado, while calling for Hamas to release Israeli hostages will be a central focus of the Boulder Jewish Festival, which kicks off Sunday morning in the same location where the firebombing took place.

Organizers of the festival, which is in its 30th year, said they have reimagined the cultural celebration to focus on community healing after a man who yelled “Free Palestine” threw Molotov cocktails at Run for Their Lives demonstrators, according to law enforcement officials.

Authorities have said 15 people and a dog were victims of the attack. Not all were physically injured, and some are considered victims for the legal case because they were in the area and could potentially have been hurt.

Run for Their Lives, a global grassroots initiative with 230 chapters, started in October 2023 after Hamas militants from the Gaza Strip stormed into Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 others hostage.

Sunday’s festival at the downtown Pearl Street pedestrian mall will center the group’s cause — raising awareness of the 55 people believed to still be in captivity in Gaza. The Boulder chapter walks at the mall every weekend for 18 minutes, the numerical value of the Hebrew word “chai,” which means “life.”

“It is going to look very different this year. Run for Their Lives is going to be featured front and center,” said Miri Kornfeld, a Run for Their Lives organizer in Denver. “The community is looking for a way to come together after an act of violence. People just want to be together, and they want to celebrate who they are.”

A group representing families of the Israeli hostages plans to send at least one family to join the Boulder chapter Sunday as it resumes its weekly walks during the festival, Kornfeld said. Art, food and music are also planned.

In response to the attack, the Boulder Police Department and the FBI are coordinating to provide increased security at the festival, local synagogues and the Boulder Jewish Community Center. Festival attendees can expect drones, SWAT elements and plainclothes officers in the crowd to increase safety and make people feel at ease, police Chief Stephen Redfearn said.

“Any would-be attacker, anybody that might come there to cause harm, I want them to see that we have a lot of people there, and hopefully that dissuades anyone from doing anything nefarious,” Redfearn said Thursday.

The victims of the attack include eight women and seven men, ranging in age from 25 to 88. One is a Holocaust survivor.

Mohamed Sabry Soliman, 45, was charged Thursday in state court with 118 counts, including attempted murder, assault, illegal use of explosives and animal cruelty. He has also been charged with a hate crime in federal court and is jailed on a $10 million cash bond.

Soliman, an Egyptian national who federal authorities say was living in the U.S. illegally, told police he was driven by a desire “to kill all Zionist people,” a reference to the movement to establish and sustain a Jewish state in Israel. Authorities said he expressed no remorse about the attack.

U.S. immigration officials took Soliman’s wife and five children, who also are Egyptian, into custody Tuesday. They have not been charged in the attack.

A federal judge on Wednesday granted a request to block the deportation of Soliman’s wife and children.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who is Jewish, has deemed the attack antisemitic, meaning it targeted Jewish people because of their identity or beliefs.

Organizers have not confirmed whether all the demonstrators last Sunday were Jewish. The group is open to Jewish and non-Jewish participants.

The violence in downtown Boulder unfolded against the backdrop of the Israel-Hamas war, which continues to inflame global tensions and has contributed to a spike in antisemitism in the U.S. It also came at the start of the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates God giving the Torah to the Jewish people at Mount Sinai in Egypt.

“In the wake of the most violent antisemitic terrorist attack in Colorado history, we are reminded of the profound power of standing shoulder to shoulder,” Mindy Miller of Stop Antisemitism Colorado said at a community vigil Wednesday night. “Let today be the beginning of a new chapter in Colorado — one where Jews no longer have to stand alone.”

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Schoenbaum reported from Salt Lake City.