Shabbat shalom! Our thoughts and prayers this shabbat will be especially directed in support, once again, of our fellow Coloradans affected by the wildfires raging in the state, and those bravely fighting those fires.

A very eventful week in Jewish Boulder… a very successful Boulder Jewish Festival last Sunday, and a long and emotional evening Monday night with the Boulder City Council hearing on the Boulder-Nablus Sister City proposal.

Sunday’s festival celebrated the diversity as well as the unity of the Boulder Jewish community; that while there may be disagreements among community members, we are just that… members of one community.

Monday night, we showed that we were also a vocal part of the wider Boulder community, not afraid to express our principles and opinions to a wider audience, and our views ultimately prevailed in this case.

Let’s keep up the sometimes difficult, usually rewarding task of engaging the other, whether within our Jewish community or in the wider world, in order to try to understand and be understood in turn.

Here is the round up of the week’s stories: