My great-great grandfather lived in Trinidad, my great-grandfather mined in Cripple Creek and my grandmother had aunts and uncles in Colorado Springs. So it’s natural I’m biased toward southern Colorado. But since returning to Colorado a decade ago, I’ve discovered and fallen in love with Northern Colorado too.
It has not supplanted my affinity for Colorado Springs and its environs, but Fort Collins is now firmly part of my annual weekend getaway rotation. For me, it’s the perfect small town. A totally walkable downtown. Miles of bike paths. Fun little shops. Old-time architecture and a beautiful college campus city.
As Northern Colorado has grown, so has the IJN’s coverage of it. This is our second year of our Northern Colorado special section, an expansion of our Boulder special section to include the growing communities across the Front Range.
I hope you’ll enjoy getting to know the people and the institutions that help make up the Jewish fabric of these small but thriving communities.
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In response to my column last week, about my 100+ reads in 2024, some readers had questions. Namely, how? How do you have the time and how do you find the books? In response to the former, I joked that I gave away my lack of social life. But, if you combine the time you may spend on your phone and watching TV series, you’ll find it probably adds up to a couple of hours a day.
Making sure I’m never without a new book to start does take effort. I make frequent use of Denver Public Library’s “Books on Order” list.
I also trawl various websites, from Goodreads to the Guardian, for recommendations. I also lean on book clubs from popular figures like Jenna Bush Hager and Reese Witherspoon, and also the UK’s Richard and Judy. But I’m always looking for reading tips, so send me yours! Please, no fantasy or science fiction.
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At a public menorah lighting in Cherry Creek last Sunday, Rabbi Yisroel Engel said that for him the greatest miracle of Chanukah is not the oil, but the fact that we all stood there, celebrating Chanukah, while the Seleucid Greeks no longer exist.
Every time I see groups and individuals agitating against Israel’s existence and Jews in general I have a similar thought. If there is anything the Jewish people know, it is that we will survive. We have the data to back it up! I almost chuckle at the haters’ waste of time and energy.
Of course, enormous damage can be done to the Jewish people by anti-Semites, but there is no doubt in my mind that in 2,000 years, the Jewish people will still be here. I certainly can’t say the same about, for example, the United Nations.
The explosion of anti-Semitism since Oct. 7 didn’t shock me because I was confronted by it when I lived in Europe during the last Gaza war. What I learned in the summer of 2014 is how proud I am of being Jewish and, to quote Tom Petty, I won’t back down.
I and the IJN will continue to report on anti-Semitism, as is our responsibility, but we will also continue to celebrate our Jewish heritage and Jewish lives — this week’s special section a perfect example.
Am Yisrael Chai.
Shana Goldberg may be reached at shana@ijn.com
