What is “Run for Their Lives,” the organization in Boulder, Colorado, targeted in Sunday’s attack?

By Andrew Haubner, Olivia Young, Christa Swanson, Pat Milton

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    BOULDER, Colorado (KCNC) — Sunday’s attack in Colorado that injured at least eight people on Boulder’s Pearl Street Mall is still under investigation and the FBI described the incident as “targeted.” An organizer with Run for Their Lives, the group that was targeted, called the attack antisemitic.

Run for Their Lives is a national organization with chapters in 35 states that hosts weekly runs and walking events aimed at bringing attention to the Israeli hostages taken in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terror attack. In Colorado, the group has chapters in Boulder and Denver.

“We are a local chapter of the global initiative Run For Their Lives,” the group wrote on Facebook. “We do an 18 minute weekly walk to show international solidarity with the hostages taken from Israel during the 10/7 massacre, and still being held in Gaza. We will walk until they are all released.”

Rachel Amaru, an organizer with Run for Their Lives’ Boulder chapter, called the attack “blatantly antisemitic.”

Two sources said a witness told investigators that the suspect — later identified by the FBI as 45-year-old Mohamed Soliman — allegedly yelled “End Zionist!” and Mark Michalek, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Denver Field Office, said the suspect yelled “Free Palestine” during the attack. Amaru said the group is out on the Pearl Street Mall every week and the worst thing that’s happened in the months since they’ve started was someone trying to grab an Israeli flag from a participant.

Rabbi Israel Wilhelm, the director of Chabad at the University of Colorado, said the weekly march usually draws 15-40 people every week, and it consists of mostly older individuals. However, “there happened to be children there today.”

“It’s really just a very peaceful thing to raise awareness,” Wilhelm said.

The organization was started by several Israelis in California’s Bay Area, according to the group’s website, to call for “the immediate release of the hostages held by Hamas.”

“Innocent children, women, the elderly, and young people should not be living in tunnels 20 meters underground for over a year-they should be in their homes with their families,” the group wrote. “Until this crisis is resolved, the world risks normalizing this unbearable situation. Our focus is not on the ‘how’ (pressure world leaders or military pressure). We are solely focused on the ‘what’: doing everything possible to bring them home!”

Ed Victor, who was participating in the walk in Boulder on Sunday, said they’ve been holding the silent marches every week since Oct. 7, 2023.

They stop at the courthouse to sing songs, tell stories, and read the names of the hostages each week. Victor said about 30 people were participating in Sunday’s walk.

“We’ve been marching since Oct. 7, it’s a march for the hostages, and it’s just a walk. So we just wanted to raise awareness that there are Israeli hostages still in Gaza,” he said. “Unfortunately, we’ve had to walk every week and it’s now been over 600 days, but we feel like our presence just keeps the awareness that this is ongoing. The marchers occasionally encounter hecklers, but they try not to respond. Other people nod, clap, or thank the participants as they walk by, Victor said. He never expected that someone would attack them.

“There was somebody there that I didn’t even notice, although he was making a lot of noise, but I’m just focused on my job of being quiet and getting lined up. And, from my point of view, all of a sudden, I felt the heat. It was a Molotov cocktail equivalent, a gas bomb in a glass jar, thrown,” Victor said.

Another marcher witnessed “a big flame as high as a tree,” Victor continued, “and all I saw was someone on fire.”

Alexandra Posnock, a member of the Jewish community who frequently takes part in the weekly march, said he was notified of the attack via a group chat and he is “horrified.”

“I live five minutes away and the fact that this is happening to Jews in my local community makes me scared. But it also makes me more motivated to come out here next week and do this again because that’s what they want, they want us to hide and we’re not going to hide,” he said.

A joint statement from Boulder’s Jewish community denounced the attack and urged the community to come together in its wake.

“We are saddened and heartbroken to learn that an incendiary device was thrown at walkers at the Run for Their Lives walk on Pearl Street as they were raising awareness for the hostages still held in Gaza,” the group of organizations wrote. “When events like this enter our own community, we are shaken. Our hope is that we come together for one another.”

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