Some dates are synonymous with the catastrophic events that took place on those days. Think 9/11. Think Oct. 7.
For the Boulder and much of the Colorado Jewish community, there is another tragic event that has become known by its date: “June 1st.” It stands for the deadly firebombing terror attack in 2025 on the Pearl Street Mall against peaceful demonstrators calling for the release of hostages abducted by Hamas since . . . Oct. 7.
One week after June 1, on June 8, 2025, the Boulder Jewish Festival opened with a solemn yet powerful ceremony to comfort a shocked community and to amplify the message of hope for the release of the Israeli hostages.
At that point, Karen Diamond had not yet died from the injuries she incurred as a Run for Their Lives participant. When she died on June 25, that terror attack also became a murder.
For many, it is hard to believe it’s already been a year since June 1, as the painful feelings are still raw.
Again, the Boulder Jewish Festival on June 7, 2026 opened with another solemn ceremony, this time marking the one-year anniversary of the day that anti-Israel, anti-Jewish terrorism came to Colorado briefly and to Boulder, particularly, a community known for its life-and-let once live approach.
The organizers of the festival wanted to mark that fateful anniversary with reverence and all due respect before launching into the annual celebration of Jewish life — a statement that anti-Semitic hate cannot stop the Jewish people from living as Jews.
The ceremony on the main stage of the festival opened with Rabbi Fred Greene of Har Hashem and Rabbi Marc Soloway of Bonai Shalom singing a niggun, joined by the crowd.
To the survivors of June 1 in attendance, Greene said:
“The fact that you folks came today that you chose to show up to stand together in this place is an act of courage.
“Grief can make us want to pull inward to close a door, to get through a day quietly and alone, and no one would blame you for that.
“But you are here and that matters. We gather because last year our community was shaken and we are still shaken.
“What happened on June 1 in this space is left a wound and wounds need tending. They need light and air, and the presence of people who will sit with us in the pain rather than rush us past it.
“That is what we offer each other at this moment. Not answers, not resolutions, but presence.
“We are here together now, and that is where healing begins.”
Soloway explained the importance of celebrating even as the community still mourns.
“Just over a year ago right here, there was the most horrific attack that any of us could imagine, and many people from our community were badly burned and traumatized by that one person.
“A beloved, beloved member of our community, Karen Diamond lost her life from those injuries that she sustained that day.
A week from today, next Sunday, the 14th of June will be the first yahrzeit, the first anniversary of her passing on the Hebrew calendar.
“All of the organizers of this festival felt we can’t start the celebration — it really is a celebration of Jewish life in Boulder — without acknowledging the incredibly painful loss of a beautiful soul, Karen Diamond, who in her dying days expressed to her family that the only way to respond to such hate and darkness is with love and light.
“And that’s the message that she left for us and with us.”
Rabbi Soloway was joined on stage by two survivors of the attack, Michelle Goldman and Ed Victor, as he lit a memorial candle for Karen Diamond — Shoshana bat Lillian.
Michelle Goldman replayed the events:
“One year ago, we were standing right over there at the courthouse getting ready to sing ‘Achenu.’ We were preparing to sing it for the hostages, who at that point had been held for 603 days.
“These are the words translated into English: ‘Our family, the whole house of Israel who are in distress or in captivity, who stand either in the sea or on dry land — may the Omnipresent have mercy on them and take them out from narrowness to expanse, from darkness to light, from oppression to redemption. Now, swiftly and soon.’
“While this hymn immediately became the anthem for Oct. 7 hostages, it was actually not inspired by them. It had been with us since the 11th century when the Crusaders attacked our people and took hostages.
“We recite it every Monday and Thursday because tragically history keeps repeating itself.
“So, on June 1, 2025, we never got a chance to sing it.
“In an instant, everything exploded.
“I remember the crash, the rush of wind, the terrifying heat rising up my back.
“I dropped my banner and ran while I looked back.
“My friends were on the ground. I won’t dwell on the details of what our dear friend Karen Diamond, of blessed memory, and her husband went through and others. And how we were helpless trying to help her. It changed us forever.”
Goldman made a reference to CU Boulder Students for Justice in Palestine’s statement in support of the June 1 terrorist’s act when she said:
“We look around and see that anti-Jewish hatred is still happening in our country and right here in our city, and that simply is not OK.”
Another survivor, Ed Victor, told the crowd that he couldn’t bring himself to attend last year’s vigil at the festival. “I was mentally not ready to be here.”
This year, he came to thank and praise the Boulder County Commissioners for creating “sacred space” on in front of the County Courthouse in the center of the Pearl Street Mall where the terror attack took place.
Phase one of the sacred space includes a marker stone — already in place — indicating the spot where the attack was perpetrated.
Phase two, Victor said, will be “more of a thoughtful space, a place to have conversation on the west side of the mall, to the left of the courthouse on the grass.”
Victor said the conversation space on the west and the marker stone on the east create a line “all the way to Jerusalem.”
ADL Mountain States Director Susan Rona is a resident of the Boulder area. She noted that the friends and neighbors who were attacked as they peacefully walked with Run for Their Lives “were not soldiers, not politicians. They were free people doing what free people do in a free society. They were targeted anyway because of who they are.”
Rona introduced Rep. Joe Neguse of Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District, where Boulder is located.
Neguse thanked the June 1 survivors for their “courage and for being so willing to speak with such clarity about the stake that our community and the Jewish community in particular face.”
“We remember Karen and those who have suffered the consequences of the scourge of anti-Semitism so close to home.
“It is a sober reminder of the work that needs to be done in the years ahead.”
Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty successfully prosecuted the June 1 terrorist Mohamed Sabry Soliman, who on May 7 was sentenced to life plus 2,128 in prison.
“I want to be really clear about this,” he told the crowd.
“It was an act of terror and an act of anti-Semitism that I will always be against and demand justice for.
“It was an attack on our Jewish community.
“Sometimes when people commit hate crimes, they cloud it in excuses, reasons and rationale [that] to me make no sense.
“Regardless of whether it makes sense or not, it is a crime and we don’t stand for it in Boulder County or in the state of Colorado.”
Boulder JCC Executive Director Jonathan Lev was taken with “the amazing depth and breadth of our Boulder Jewish community. We come from different backgrounds, hold different perspectives and connect to our Judaism in different way.
“Yet we are bound by something deeper, a shared history, a shared responsibility to one another and a shared commitment to ensuring that Jewish life continues to thrive for generations to come.”
The final speaker was Rabbi Charna Rosenholtz, president of Haver, Boulder’s council of rabbis and cantors.
“We came here today carrying grief and we leave here carrying each other,” she said.
“Every voice in this space, the survivors, the officials, the neighbors who simply showed up, is proof that what happened here one year ago did not break us.”
© IJN 2026
