The perpetrator, an Egyptian national in the country illegally who expressed his desire to “kill all Zionist people”, allegedly planned the attack for more than a year.
Soloway, who happened not to be at that morning’s hostage walk, began receiving phone calls from distressed congregants in the minutes after the attack, and in their shock attempted to describe to him what had happened and what they were seeing.
Soloway rushed to the hospital anticipating their arrival and was standing in its entrance as six members of his congregation whom he knew well arrived, burned and shell-shocked.
“I was in a crazed, surreal haze,” he recalls, “Everyone was in rooms in the emergency department, and I was trying to assess what was going on amid the deep shock, to let them know I was here, talking with them, comforting them. The whole thing was just overwhelming and awful.”
Many congregants who had not been physically harmed were left traumatised after “literally seeing a Jewish body on the ground in flames. Some have told me that when they close their eyes, they still see that image, and they’ll never forget it,” Soloway said.
People attend a community gathering following an antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado, June 4, 2025 (Credit: CHET STRANGE/AFP via Getty Images)AFP via Getty Images
For many days after the attack, the previously quiet and peaceful streets of Boulder were flooded with national news outlets, reporters and cameras as it became the centre of national media attention. As the community was reeling, journalists began showing up outside the hospital and camping outside congregation members’ homes to try and get interviews. And then a few weeks later, another tragedy, 82-year-old Karen Diamond succumbed to injuries sustained in the attack.
When it became clear to Karen and to those around her that she would not recover from her injuries, she asked to see Rabbi Soloway, who rushed to be at her bedside in Denver in the last days of her life.
Together, she and her rabbi talked, sang and prayed. She was compos mentis and “very much herself” right up until the very end, Soloway said, and told everyone around her that “the way to respond to this kind of incident is more love and compassion and kindness.”
Karen was “a remarkably beautiful person, inside and out, who was a big volunteer within the community and was very involved in the big annual Colorado music festival. She was loving, thoughtful, compassionate and, as an interior designer, had an incredible sense of aesthetic and an eye for beauty.
“Even as Karen was dying from these horrible burn wounds and after the trauma of it all, she was still so keen to express her love, her appreciation, her gratitude,” Soloway said.
To avoid a flurry of media attention, Karen was buried during a small private ceremony several days before the wider public was notified of her passing, with just her immediate family present and officiated by Soloway.
Karen Diamond[Missing Credit]
During the memorial, Soloway read out a tribute written to the community by Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who said that Karen should be remembered not for the horrific way in which she died but for the “inspiring” way in which she lived.
Drawing strength in these last weeks has been “incredibly tricky”, says Soloway. “There are times when I go into a very strange place, like I kind of realise there are ways in which it all has yet to be fully processed. It has been a lot to hold and to carry.”
He has drawn strength from the “resilience of my community and the friendship I have with rabbinic colleagues all over the world who contacted me to offer their support.”
In the days after the attack, when he was feeling overwhelmed, Soloway got a call from Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, who leads the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, which in 2018 saw eleven members of its congregation murdered in what was the deadliest attack on Jews in American history.
“He told me, ‘I know what you’re going through’,” Soloway said, “that he was here for me any time of night and day if I wanted to talk. It was really moving, and a great help.”
The weekly walk for the hostages continues to take place through central Boulder, and while before the attack, fewer than 30 people on average took part, now there are more than 100 people joining every week, albeit now alongside armed security.
On June 8, one week after the attack, more than 3,000 people joined in, including hundreds of non-Jewish members of the public, both Colorado senators, the mayor of Boulder, council members, the state attorney general, other faith leaders, and even some of the victims from the week before. Taking place on the same day, the Boulder Jewish Festival – which is a “pretty massive” annual event in the city complete with booths, food, music, arts and crafts and is the longest running Jewish festival in America – saw more than double its usual turnout to have over 30,000 people gather to celebrate Jewish life.
An attendee drapes herself in an Israeli and hostage flag during a community gathering at the site of the antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado, June 4, 2025 (Credit: CHET STRANGE/AFP via Getty Images) AFP via Getty Images
In spite of the horrors of the last few weeks, Boulder’s Bonai Shalom congregation continues to grow, having added more than 20 brand-new members since the June 1 attack.
“Our incredible community continues to hold each other up when others are falling down,” Soloway said. “Together, as a community, we celebrated Shavuot, and we continue to hold Shabbat services every week. We sing, we pray, eat together and be together. As a community, we are mourning, but Jewish life in Colorado will not be dimmed. As Karen said, kindness must always be the answer to tragedy.”
