NMJHS Life & Legacy Endowment Fund: Create Your Own Legacy
LIFE & LEGACY: L’Chaim New Mexico — To Our Jewish Future
The Harold Grinspoon Foundation is committed to helping secure the future of New Mexico’s Jewish community. We are excited to participate in a new 4-year partnership with them.
LIFE & LEGACY is an endowment program designed to help you create permanent legacy gifts, demonstrating your belief in the continuity of Jewish life in New Mexico for generations to come. Working together with Jewish organizations and synagogues in Albuquerque and Santa Fe, this program helps individuals and families create ongoing support for the Jewish causes you care about.
NMJHS is one of ten New Mexico organizations participating in Life &Legacy: L’Chaim New Mexico- To Our Jewish Future.
Others include:
Congregation Albert, Albuquerque
Congregation B’nai Israel, Albuquerque
Congregation Nahalat Shalom, Albuquerque
HaMakom, Santa Fe
Jewish Care Program
JCC of Greater Albuquerque
Jewish Federation of New Mexico
Temple Beth Shalom, Santa Fe
Testimonial: “What NMJHS has meant to me” Dorothy Corner Amsden, NMJHS, Past President, Los Alamos
New Mexico history took on a new and relevant meaning for me after I joined the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society and started learning about how Jewish history intertwines with New Mexico history. Having a new, Jewish perspective made impersonal state history come alive for me.
Over the years I’ve learned about Jewish merchant families from Germany who settled throughout New Mexico in the late 1800s and were accepted into the social fabric of the Territory’s small towns and growing cities. Their stories have been preserved by NMJHS members as videotaped interviews with descendants and published in anthologies.
Intriguingly, European Jewish merchants were not the first Jews to set foot in New Mexico, as I learned through NMJHS publications and conferences. Crypto-Jews fleeing the Inquisition in Mexico City had settled along the Rio Grande in the 1600s. In recent years their heritage has started coming to light. This is history unfolding before our very eyes.
It’s astonishing how much the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society has accomplished since it was established in 1985. NMJHS has led the way documenting Jewish presence and influence in New Mexico from the very beginning of Spanish colonization. It’s been a fascinating learning experience for me and countless other Society members as we read its award-winning quarterly newsletter, Legacy, and attend its programs and conferences.
My association with NMJHS over the years has deepened my appreciation of their unique mission within the Jewish community and in a wider context as well. The Life & Legacy Partnership Program, which was established two years ago, is the perfect vehicle for making a gift now or in your estate planning.
NMJHS “Pioneer” Society Donors as of July 30, 2023
| Rick and Kathy, z”l Abeles Dorothy Corner Amsden Anonymous (3) Anonymous, IMO Albert &Lillian Hartog Anonymous, IMO Leah Kellogg & Gerald Bell Gloria Abella Ballen & Ron Duncan Hart Deborah Avren Lance and Julia Bell Wayne Bobrick, z”l & Tania Bobrick Daniel B. Borenstein, MD Jeffrey Brown & Cherri Hudson-Brown Harvey & Chris Buchalter Patricia Carlton Alan and Diane Chodorow Sandra and David Dietz Stuart Feen & Carol Sonnenshein Bill and Margrethe Feldman Doris Francis-Erhard Carla Freeman, z”l Talia Freedman Debra Wechter Friedman Irene & Robert Gale Art Gardenswartz & Sonya Priestly Sheila Gershen & Sy Baldwin Elliott Gerson Linda & Ed Goff Marcia Greenbaum Paul Greenbaum Helen Grevey |
Jessica Herzstein Stan &, Helen Hordes Frederic William Ilfeld, Jr. Debra Kane & Steven Kesselman, z”l Heath & Barbara LaMont Bernice Langner Fran Levine Norma Libman Cynthia and David London Kathleen Kahn Mahon Stephen P. Margulin & Iris S. Weinstein Anne McCormick & Alan Wagman Harold Melnick, z”l Richard Melzer Susan K. Michelson & William Stein Beth Moise, z”l Steve Moise Beverly Post and Jack Shlachter Noel Pugach Fred Raznick Erika Rimson & David Bernstein Robert Rubenstein Naomi Sandweiss Rae Siporin Paul Sklar Robert Spitz Marcia Torobin Murray Tucker, z”l Gary and Sandra Wallace Sarah Winger |
New Mexico Jewish History and NMJHS: A Snapshot
New Mexico’s Jewish history reaches back almost 500 hundred years when some of the early Spanish arrivals by way of Mexico traced their family histories to Spanish and Portuguese Sephardic Jews who became conversos, or “converted” in order to escape the clutches of the Spanish Inquisition. The mid-19th century marked the arrival of European Ashkenazi Jews via the Santa Fe Trail, and they became the leading merchants in the Territory. When the railroad arrived in the 1880s, more Jewish merchants arrived and expanded their business presence throughout New Mexico. The history of New Mexico Jews tells the stories of individuals and organizations who made their mark on all walks of life from business/commerce; ranchers and miners; social organizations; traders with the Navajo and Pueblo reservations; to becoming the first mayor of Albuquerque and first governor of the State. All of them made significant contributions to the Territory and later State, and it is our goal and responsibility to ensure the recognition as well as through educational programming this rich history reaches the public. New Mexico Jewish history, therefore, reflects a blend of both Ashkenazi and Sephardic cultural traditions, a unique feature in U.S. Jewish history.
Founded in 1985, our mission is: “The New Mexico Jewish Historical Society is a secular organization that promotes greater knowledge and understanding of New Mexico’s diverse Jewish experiences within a broad cultural context.” Through our programs, annual Fall Conference, and publications, we are the sole state-wide organization devoted to the research, collection, and publication of these events and the stories of Jewish families who settled here. It is our goal to ensure that this rich history reaches as many as possible to keep our stories alive for now and generations to follow.
Our legacy donors want to ensure that the history of the Jews of New Mexico and their contributions to the state are preserved and available to the Jewish community and the general public. If it us not us, then who will pass along these stories to next generations?
Your legacy gift today promises that the stories and contributions of the Jews in New Mexico will be kept alive and passed to the next generation. Please join us!
If you would like to learn more about Life & Legacy, please contact Erika Rimson, Executive Director, Jewish Community Foundation of New Mexico, erika@jcfnm.org
DOWNLOAD LIFE & LEGACY: LETTER OF INTENT
DOWNLOAD LIFE & LEGACY: GIFT CONFIRMATION FORM
NMJHS is a private non-profit 501 c 3 organization and Life & Legacy contributions are tax deductible.