Two Sundays ago was the first time since June 1 that Natalya Reznik returned to the Pearl Street Mall to walk to raise awareness of the roughly 50 dead and living hostages taken in attacks led by the militant group Hamas.
The last time she joined the public walks hosted by the Boulder chapter of Run for Their Lives, her legs were burned in front of the Boulder County Courthouse in a firebombing attack that led to the death of 82-year-old Karen Diamond. The attack left Reznick in a hospital for one week, and she spent another week in the hospital after surgery, she said.
While Reznik could walk on Aug. 17, she was still psychologically recovering from the attack. She and other participants began their march that day but were followed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators who shouted over them. One woman, Reznik and BRTL founder Rachel Amaru said, was shouting at them. Reznik did her best not to pay attention. The group following them would read the names of dead Palestinian children, followed by “Killed by the IDF,” or Israeli Defense Forces, Amaru said.
They say they were again harassed by pro-Palestinian demonstrators during their Aug. 24 walk.
Now, Boulder Run for Their Lives, the group targeted in the June 1 attack, says it will no longer publicly advertise its demonstrations out of safety concerns from what it calls repeated antisemitic harassment.
“I was really, really scared. I was scared even before even coming there. I had to overcome my fears. The screaming made me freeze inside,” Reznik recalled, adding: “We’re there for a very obvious humanitarian reason. Our cause, I think, is obvious and just. We want to save people’s lives … There is nothing in that action itself that should cause that much aggression and hatred.”
‘Not about Israel or Gaza’
Boulder Run for Their Lives made the announcement about not advertising its walks in a Wednesday news release distributed by Brandon Rattiner, senior director of the Jewish Community Relations Council, or the JCRC. Boulder Run for Their Lives is not a JCRC member organization, but the JCRC advocates for all Jewish people in Colorado, Rattiner said.
Run for Their Lives will not livestream its walks to avoid revealing their locations, Amaru said, but videos of the events will be posted afterward.
“This is not about Israel or Gaza or the Middle East. This is about the safety of Jews and Zionists here in Colorado,” Rattiner said. “And you would think that the murder of someone at this same event would be a call to lower the temperature and kind of useless inflammatory rhetoric. But, as we see, there is just a segment of the population that is comfortable harassing and intimidating this community for what they care about.”
The announcement comes after months of heated exchanges between some members of Boulder’s Jewish community and some pro-Palestinian demonstrators amid the fallout from Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israelis, and Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. These conflicts have also spilled over into Boulder City Council meetings.
The pro-Palestinian crowd who attends the meetings and publicly demonstrate says they’re advocating for the Palestinian people and that they feel it’s unfair to deem criticism of Israel as antisemitic. More than 60,000 people have died amid Israel’s military offensive since the Oct. 7 attacks, according to data from Gaza’s health ministry and listed by a United Nations office. The conflict has led to human rights organization Amnesty International concluding Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
Some in the Boulder Jewish community believe they are being held responsible for the actions of a foreign government and that, in and of itself, is antisemitism. Members of the Jewish community also feel there is a double standard when it comes to calling out antisemitism as opposed to other forms of hateful rhetoric.
Amaru said that, since the June 1 attack, BRTL pays for private security and protection from off-duty police officers.
“I am not going into hiding, I am protecting the people in this group to the best of my ability,” Amaru said, adding: “No one needs to be harassed for doing something that is peaceful and humanitarian and for a measure that everyone should be behind.”
Differing perspectives
The BRTL news release also mentioned a Boulder City Council candidate being among the pro-Palestinian demonstrators. Rattiner later confirmed they were referring to candidate Aaron Stone.
Stone told the Daily Camera they weren’t harassing BRTL but simply counterprotesting.
“I agree with their primary premise that we should release all of the hostages. However, what I feel they fail to address is that there are over two million hostages in Palestine,” Stone said, referring to the Gaza population. “There are also thousands of hostages in Israeli prisons. It feels as though their argument is extremely one-sided because they’re only talking about the (roughly) 20 hostages (believed to be living) and not the bombings going on in Gaza.”
Stone added he feels it’s divisive for the BRTL demonstrators to be carrying Israeli flags when, to some, that could be seen as an endorsement of the Israeli government.
“That is the premise of why we are counterprotesting them,” Stone said, later arguing the group is “maximizing Israeli pain while minimizing Palestinian pain and suffering.”
A video provided to the Camera shows Stone referring to Amaru as a Nazi. Stone said in a follow-up text that the video was taken out of context and came after someone else said “bombing babies” should continue until hostages are released. Stone said his comment wasn’t directed at the entire group and was made “when one of their supporters was threatening me with violence,” he wrote.
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