V’haikar, lo lefached klal, the main thing: have no fear at all” was the song in my head as I was on the way to the Boulder solidarity gathering this past Sunday, one week after the Run for Their Lives event in support of freedom for the hostages was terrorized and attacked by attempts to burn Jews alive.
But we got there, and gratefully, SWAT teams, tons of police security and snipers that could be seen from every surrounding rooftop defined the security landscape.
A relief. Or is it? Sadly, it’s a terrible sign of the times in America of 2025. For Jews to peacefully gather these days, you need to be encased by snipers.
The external protection was the snipers. The internal protection at this powerful and peaceful rally was the spirit.
The thousands from all walks of Jewish life who showed up to stand with our brothers and sisters. The non-Jews who showed up to stand with us. The speakers, one after the other, who sadly hit exactly the right note in every single searing word and emotional message of strength.
I have been watching movingly breathtaking interviews with hostage survivors Omer Shem-Tov, Eli Sharabi, Agam Berger, Keith Siegal and others. In awe, I try to internalize and learn from them. Within the pain, as I listen to them and others, my gratitude and pride for being Jewish only grows.
At Sunday’s Boulder rally, amidst all the valuable and brave remarks and leadership, the words shared by Moshe Lavi, brother-in-law of hostage Omri Miran, were moving to tears. Lavi was another one of the special fellow Jews and Israelis I got to now “know” from the sadly expanded hostage family, who penetrate the heart in ways I could not have imagined I would feel for someone I never met.
If you weren’t there in person, please take the time to find Moshe’s words in this week’s IJN coverage.
We’ve all been to beautiful Boulder countless times. When the news of the terrorist attack spread, immediately we could all see in our mind’s eye exactly where it transpired.
The stunning setting of Boulder, in the foothills beneath the mountains that tower above it, was frighteningly marred by violence and hate of Jews.
But one week later, the response to the hate was doubled, tripled, quadrupled and beyond, by love, by unity, by strength, by a Jewish Am Yisrael Chai kind of bravery and pride.
We listened. We embraced. We stood together in silence. Together we prayed “Mi Sheberach” for the wounded in the previous week’s attack, each of their names uttered. Of course, we prayed for the hostages, and called out “Bring them home now” after the utterance of each of their names, too.
Like the closing of every Jewish prayer and gathering, it ended with a plea and prayer for peace. “Oseh shalom bimromav . . .” Thousands of us sang, before the crowd dispersed to enjoy the 30th Boulder Jewish Festival.
Once again, within the pain, I couldn’t have felt prouder for being Jewish. I couldn’t have felt prouder of our Boulder-Denver communities, for despite the campaign of terror that has been mounted against our people, we are a people who still concludes our gatherings, even a gathering to mark such a painful terror attack, with a song whose message is a call for peace. No “Alahou Akbars.” No gunshots ringing in the air.
Just grief, sorrow, empathy, support, prayer and, dare I say — hope.
A part of me also couldn’t help but wonder about the sudden support the community received. After lopsided distorted mainstream media coverage of the war in Israel — sometimes out and out blood libels — after letting verbally virulent anti-Israel “activism” go unchecked and gain traction to the point of becoming nearly intractable and hard to reign in, after watching these escalations pushing a superficial false narrative that foments anti-Semitism, now, after Jews were burning alive, the mainstream media showed up to give voice to Jews. Some political leaders who until now have been silent, were present.
It’s mixed emotions, though. Of course, I am beyond grateful for their presence. Now more than ever, it’s crucial and thus deeply appreciated.
Yet I also ask, where were you and your leadership until now to help prevent precisely such a predictable eventuality, that thrives on your silence?
Why have you not confronted this head on, with integrity, at its inception? The inconvenient truth is that indifference was the preferred road that has been taken. College campuses, synagogue security intensified, ongoing threats and calls of “globalize the intifada” aka murder Jews at random, and the response has been, at best, milquetoast. At worse, repeated unconcern, disinterest, detachment.
We have watched this in knowing fear. For this is a rodeo, as the saying goes, we have all seen before. Now our fears have sadly come to pass.
I recently wrote wondering what the pendulum point, the tipping point, the inflection point — call it what you will — will be for Jews in America. Unfortunately, it is becoming ever more frequent and sharper by the minute.
Many of us in the community are honestly scared. When will these series of tipping points become an “on the verge” or “on the brink of widespread disaster” moment that can lead to a siege on Jewish life here?
It sounds farfetched. But is it? Is that what some are waiting for? That kind of profound Jewish victimization when you can only stand with the Jewish community when we are under attack, but not when we fight to stay alive?
I feel deeply grateful for the allies, for those friends who have stood with our community. But I can also say, there have been many disappointments, too.
An intentional, calculated assault is being unleashed against the American Jewish community.
If the weak kind of response the Jewish community has been receiving so far continues, what will be?
I’m not referring to the theatrics of a Greta Thunberg, for whom it seems optics, virtue signaling and dramatic selfie style flotillas are her main cause, rather than actual humanitarian care or labor on behalf of Gazans.
But this insidious anti-Israelism is becoming part of the mainstream. Just the other day, famous football coach Pep Guradiola expressed his worry for the suffering of Gazans in an emotional speech he delivered at a Manchester University. Of course, that is a universal kind of agony we all feel. Innocents pay the horrible, ultimate price because of the evil people who start barbaric wars. But then his remarks veered into the skewed distorted anti-Israel bias.
Somehow yet again, as has often been seen in the West since that deadly catastrophic Oct. 7 day, the truly sadistic evil of Hamas got a pass, painting Israel as a villain.
Sadly, this is not confined to far off England or Australia or France or anywhere else in the world.
I’m concerned for this kind of warped thinking and “leading” that has reached our very own town, too.
For now, I pick up where I left off, and am still singing “V’haikar.”
These poignant, strengthening Jewish words are a torch before our generation in this time.
Sing with me.
V’haikar!
Have no fear at all.
© IJN 2025
