Taking a STAND in Steamboat Springs
Original Article written by Steve Mark and published in Intermountain Jewish News
March 15, 2024 - Steamboat Springs, Colo.
Since August, 2022, Rabbi Kolby Morris-Dahary has been the first full-time rabbi at Congregation Har Mishpacha in Steamboat Springs. She loves everything about her first pulpit and synagogue. She is especially crazy about Steamboat Springs itself, a place she calls “paradise.”
A bit of nirvana was tarnished shortly after she arrived, however, when the rabbi was alerted that someone drew a swastika on a Jewish student’s car at Steamboat Springs High School. The incident occurred on Rosh Hashana.
“As I got to know the family of the student, I found out, unfortunately, this was definitely not an isolated incident, not even within their own family,” Morris-Dahary says. “They raised three kids who went through the high school, and each of them had multiple anti-Semitic incidents happen to them. I began to uncover that it was pervasive for years and years, not only at the high school but at other schools and around town this behavior of drawing swastikas and nobody really doing anything about it. It goes without saying that I was absolutely shocked.”
Not one to stand by idly, Morris-Dahary sprung into action. She quickly reached out to local press in Steamboat to appeal to the community and then formed STAND (Steamboat Team to Disrupt Antisemitism and Discrimination) while enlisting the support of local community leaders to join her movement. “I decided to say, ‘Here are people who are saying Routt County is better than this and that we’re not going to tolerate this kind of behavior anymore,’” Morris-Dahary said. “I brought them all together and that was the genesis of STAND. I received an outpouring of support from the Steamboat community, those within the Jewish community, but also from outside the Jewish community.”
“She took that information and ran with it,” says Lisa Eifling, school resource officer at the Steamboat Springs Police Dept. “It started as a small group, then we got more people on board.”
The STAND advisory council of 20 members meets monthly. The most recent meeting of the entire group drew 135 citizens. “I got to know Rabbi Kolby and we work collaboratively with our police department on issues like this and [with] the Anti-Defamation League,” says Steamboat Springs School District Superintendent, Dr. Celine Wicks. “It brought so many people together who all believe the same thing, like, this needs to stop, It’s a super powerful thing to be together as a unified group.”
In the last year, STAND had four large events. Morris-Dahary calls them “convenings.” One was to show support for the LGBTQ community. Another last November, was themed “Standing Up To Jewish Hate” The most recent convening was in January, 2024, when the group examined the growing Latino population in Steamboat Springs. The meetings are open to the public.
“The impact of these convenings is so powerful,” says Morris-Dahary. “It sparks conversations. Now we really have a rhythm and a format which we feel is really working.”
Listening to Really Painful Stories
“The first part of is listening to the experiences of the people that are part of the community that we’re trying to address. It’s opening our eyes to see what it’s like for a Hispanic person living in Routt County, finding out what are some of the challenges that they face because of their race or religion or sexual orientation. The important part is just witnessing and listening to the really painful stories in some cases of what it’s like to just be yourself and live here in this place that we all call home.”
“The networking is huge,” says Elfling. “Knowing that we’re in this together, that we are strong, and that it take a village. We have the support and our community engagements have been large. It’s nice to see the support from the community because as one person, I know my feelings and I know that we know what’s right from wrong. It’s good to know that the community feels the same way and that we have reinforcements. It’s sometime hard to explain, because some of the issues are something that you wouldn’t associate with Steamboat, right?”
There have been more recent displays of anti-Semitism in Steamboat Springs. In October, someone at the high school burned a swastika logo on a picnic table. In December, a swastika was made visible at a local elementary school. “We really wanted to have the convening to educate about what the swastika is, and how it makes Jewish people feel when they see this around their town,” says Morris-Dahary. “We’ve been educating a little bit abbot the Holocaust and addressing Holocaust denying. We have small group discussions at the convenings, where we ask, ‘What happens when you see this kind of behavior or you see discrimination or bias within our community, or if you see a hate symbol, what can you do to stand up to hate?’ Then we ask ‘What would you do to be an upstander and how can you better address and respond to these acts of discrimination and bias within our community?’”
Of course, added to the rabbi’s plate is all that encompasses the events of last Oct. 7. “In some ways I’m grateful that our community issue happened before Oct. 7, because we were already strong in the face of adversity. We were already coming together with the community and outside the Jewish community to find supprt. Although we felt strong, it was really, really difficult. My instinctual response is to talk about it, to lift us up.”