BOULDER, Colorado — I noticed the overcast sky immediately but didn’t see the drones above my head until they were mentioned by someone else. Drones were hovering between Star Wars-style speeder-bike moves and others were tethered to rooftops and high enough to capture the full expanse of a college town nestled into the edge of the Flatiron Mountain Range.

My attention now shifted to the military snipers with precision shooters balanced on tripods above the pastry-lace trim of Boulder’s historic buildings. I wondered how many there were. It looked like someone had placed clusters of toy plastic soldiers along an expanse too wide for my field of vision to take in. At 5 foot 2 inches, I had no way to tell where the crowd began and ended.

It was Sunday, one week after a man firebombed Boulder’s Run for Their Lives group, and my chapter of the Israeli-hostage solidarity movement in Denver was joining the Boulder team’s 18-minute walk down Pearl Street for the first time.

The average Denver weekly turnout ranges between 30 and 40. I was told that before the attack, the weekly Boulder walk hovered between 25 and 30 participants.

Yes, there is a participation uptick when new hostage deaths are verified or a hostage return negotiation attempt actually results in a homecoming. But I was shocked by the crowd that turned out on Sunday.

The crowd for Run for Their Lives and the Boulder Jewish Festival was large on June 8, the first Sunday after the walk was firebombed by a........

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