Burned Alive in Boulder: When Silence Screams

Boulder, Colorado. When I free associate those words, I don’t think of beautiful scenery. Instead what comes to mind is Jon Benet Ramsey’s unsolved kidnapping and murder several decades ago, and now, Jews being set on fire with Molotov cocktails. How did we come to this horrendous situation?  Antisemitism has been around since we became a distinct people and even though America has been arguably the best country in the world to the Jews, antisemitism has lurked here before. Until the 1940s, in my own hometown of Miami Beach, Jews were barred from living anywhere north of 5^th street. In Bal Harbour, the town where I work, anyone with more than “one fourth Hebrew blood” was not allowed to own property until the 1940s, and the Bal Harbour Club did not admit Jews until the 1980s. Then, thankfully, it became socially unacceptable to be openly antisemitic, forcing many antisemites to be more discreet. That is, until now.

Ever since October 7^th, 2023, the antisemites that were always there have amplified their voices and sought to excuse and legitimize their hatred of Jews and Israel by linking their hatred to the war between Israel and Hamas. Along the way they have unfortunately found and recruited many of the uneducated youth primarily to the left of center who are hungry for any kind of social cause to align themselves with. Many of these people have no idea where Gaza is, or that if their Queers for Palestine ever showed up in Gaza, they would be killed instantly.  And yet there they go, in 2024 at Harvard University chanting “long live the intifada” and “globalize the intifada”, or in NYC’s Time Square on New Year’s day 2025, chanting “there is only one solution, intifada revolution” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” in too many protests to count across the United States.

Since President Trump took office, his administration has argued that these slogans are not merely words, that these chants are not merely protests, rather that these are incitements to violence and thereby illegal. The administration has used Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to protect Jews on college campuses, has revoked federal funding from places like Harvard which allowed the violent rhetoric to fester, recently threatened to suspend Columbia’s accreditation altogether, and sought to deport non-citizens who engaged in this rhetoric. Many have protested citing free speech laws and due process. But I think many more finally realize that President Trump is addressing the antisemitism issue with the heavy hand that it should be dealt with. If only the courts would cooperate, the antisemites would get what they deserve.

On May 30^th, 2025, the Boulder County Commissioners issued a statement expressing their concern with the use of terms like “illegal alien” and “migrant” by federal authorities, emphasizing their commitment to due process and human rights rather than engage in what they called intimidation tactics by the federal government. But guess what happened within 48 hours? On June 1^st, Mohamed Sabry Soliman, an Egyptian national who had overstayed his U.S. visa, attacked a pro-Israel gathering with Molotov cocktails and a flamethrower, injuring 12 people. Dozens of more incendiary devices were found. During the attack, which was caught on camera, he shouted “Free Palestine.” Pastor John Hagee described the horror of what happened more meaningfully than any news channel: “A victim who had survived the Holocaust 80 years ago, suffered burns at the hands of a terrorist in Boulder Colorado. While separated by a different millennium, a different generation, a different country, a different weapon, and a different perpetrator, one thing that remains the same is the evil scourge that is Jew hatred. Be it “Heil Hitler” or “Free Palestine” the goal is the same, the complete and total destruction of the Jewish people, their nation, and those who stand with them.” That moral clarity is nearly nonexistent on the Left, its college campuses, and its media.

Let us examine for a moment the extent of the injuries because unfortunately the mainstream news media has hardly shared any of the graphic footage as if to hide it and belittle just how horrific the attack was. The 12 victims ranged in age from 20s to 80s, walking peacefully to show solidarity with the Israeli hostages kept by Hamas in Gaza. Some victims were flown by helicopter to specialized burn units due to the severity of their burns and admitted to ICUs, but even those released a few days later will bear physical scars forever and a kind of post-traumatic stress that will burden them for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine what it could be like to have glass bottles hurled at you, shattering into a million pieces against you, with your face or arms or other body parts suddenly ablaze in gasoline-powered fire? In a moment your melted clothing has branded itself into your very being, burning through your hair, skin, and muscle and firing off millions of nerve fibers as you collapse because you would rather die than feel the most painful moment of your life. The searing agony, the smell of your own burning flesh, and witnessing your body literally melting away with no one to help you is probably one of the most traumatic experiences anyone could live through. Instead of humanizing these innocent victims who were purposely set on fire to be burnt alive, the news media felt it was better to evoke sympathy with the terrorist’s daughter’s potential deportation which would derail her future medical career, arguing she was somehow the most important victim even though she wasn’t one of the human beings set on fire. I know we talk about physician shortages all the time, but hey, we’re not doing that badly that we’d need a terrorist’s daughter to be on staff at any hospital.

We live in a world spinning upside down and the wrong way around, but thankfully the Trump administration has already taken moves to deport both the terrorist and his family. This terrorist and his actions are a perfect example of the long ignored or excused words of hate that have directly resulted in acts of violent terrorism and antisemitism. As we read in Parshat Naso this weekend, we could see that the Torah did not shy away from the consequences of impurity or transgression. “Command the Israelites to banish from the camp all those afflicted with tzara’at, anyone with a discharge, and all those ritually defiled through contact with the dead. You must banish both male and female; you must send them outside the camp so they do not defile their camps in which I dwell among them.” We may not understand the full meaning of why these particular states are considered so impure or damaging. In fact, it seems rather extreme to our modern sensibilities, and I don’t want to equate the two. But from those laws of excluding people in a state of impurity we can infer that when someone brings harm to the camp — even only in the spiritual sense — they must be removed until they are no longer a threat. And it is in this vein that I am thankful this administration is following that same lead, and the attacker will be deported. There can be no place in our society for those who violently attack and attempt to murder Jews, Zionists, or anyone else. Those people who commit or encourage these actions must be banished from our camp, from our country, and those same standards should be applied to members of congress that engage in fanning of the flames of rhetoric, starting with the infamous Squad. We must work tirelessly for a world in which God’s protection is not a prayer but a reality that we help make come true by our own actions, through strength, and through justice. Like the last line in the Grace After Meals, “Adonai oz le’amo yiten, Adonai yevarech et amo va’shalom.” God Will give his nation strength, and only then will God bring peace. May we be worthy of the Birkat Kohanim of Peace that we find in Parshat Naso as we stand united against antisemitism.

“May God bless you and protect you. May God shine His face upon you and be gracious to you. May God lift His face to you and grant you peace.”