Commemorating June 1st: Resilience, Memory, and Community

Commemorating June 1st: Resilience, Memory, and Community

Standing Together in Strength

Today is June 1st, marking the first anniversary of the horrific firebombing attack on Pearl Street that changed some of our lives forever and cruelly took the life of Karen Sorin Diamond z”l.

Many Bonai members were there as witnesses that day, and physical and emotional scars remain. What also remains is our resilience, our determination, and our commitment to stand together as proud Jews—celebrating our identity, our traditions, our rituals, and our practices with love, connection, and light to obliterate the darkness.

There are scary forces out there that are determined to destroy us and, of course, we have to be vigilant and stand up against the growing antisemitism in the world, advocating and showing up for each other.

We honor Karen’s memory through acts of love and kindness, which she embodied and expressed as the necessary response to evil in her dying days. We are strong and we are here for each other.

Thinking of all who were there that awful day, all of us impacted by its horror, and, of course, Karen’s beloved family at the center.

Love, blessings, and strength,
Rabbi Marc

Community Reflection & Resources

We also share this reflective piece from the Boulder Reporting Lab looking back at this year of grieving, remembering, and carrying on: Read the Full Article on Boulder Reporting Lab

עם ישראל חי

About Rabbi Marc Soloway

Marc is a native of London, England where he was an actor and practitioner of complimentary medicine before training as a rabbi in London, Jerusalem and Los Angeles. He was ordained at the Ziegler School of Rabbinical Studies at the American Jewish University in 2004 and has been the the spiritual leader at Bonai Shalom in Boulder ever since. Marc was a close student of Rabbi Zalman Schechter Shalomi and received an additional smicha (rabbinic ordination) from him in 2014, just two months before he died. He has been the host and narrator of two documentary films shown on PBS; A Fire in the Forest: In Search of the Baal Shem Tov and Treasure under the Bridge: Pilgrimage to the Hasidic Masters of Ukraine. Marc is a graduate of the Institute of Jewish Spirituality, a fellow of Rabbis Without Borders, has traveled to Ghana in a rabbinic delegation with American Jewish World Service and co-chair of the Rabbinical Council and national board member of Hazon, which strives to create more sustainable Jewish communities. In 2015, Marc was among a group of 12 faith leaders honored at The White House as “Champions of Change” for work on the climate. Marc is a proud member of Beit Izim, Boulder’s Jewish goat milking co-op.

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