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Suspect steals ‘We stand with Israel’ banner from JCC in Colorado town

The town of Vail, Colo., asked the public to help it locate the stolen banner.

Police Car Emergency Lights
Police car lights. Credit: geralt/Pixabay.

The police department in Vail, Colo., asked the public’s help in finding a banner stating “We stand with Israel” that a suspect stole from a Jewish Community Center.

The blue-and-white banner was stolen on March 18 at about 5:30 p.m., the town said on Monday.

It shared a picture of what appeared to be a man in a white T-shirt, sandals and a black baseball cap.

Vail is situated some 25 miles northeast of Aspen and about 50 miles west of Denver. The town, which draws a lot of skiers, has about 5,300 permanent residents and about 5,000 people who visit its vacation sites, per the town website.

“If Michigan Hillel wants to remain the center of Jewish life on campus, it cannot retreat from one of the central and challenging parts of being Jewish there,” Seth Mendel, of CAMERA, told JNS.
“Your ability to find the strength to rise above the pain, to combat the immediate threat to your life, and to operate sound judgment demonstrates the strength of your character,” Israel’s president wrote.
“We tried to make it clear to them that this is a memorial that was built for those who died in a horrible terrorist attack,” Lawrence Puccini told JNS.
Israel assailed the decision as a “grotesque weaponization of an award to legitimize anti-Israel hatred and prejudice.”