February 23rd Newsletter NM Jewish Journal
This is the February 23rd, 2025 newsletter of the New Mexico Jewish Journal.
~An update on the hostage situation in Israel framed by an historic remembrance of kibbutz life and the rededication of kibbutz Nir Oz.
~We stand with the Associated Press in their defiance of the White House order to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico.
~Experiencing the world premier of the opera Llantos 1492: A Flamenco Opera!
~ Introducing Sarah Winger, the new Executive Director of the Jewish Community Foundation of New Mexico.
~And, our Community Supporters' announcements. New: Camp Harry and Daisy Stein Overnight Camp in Arizona, Camp "Sleep-away" Scholarships from JCFNM, and much more!
Stickers pasted on mailboxes of Kibbutz Nir Oz, Israel, near the Gaza Strip, Thursday, Nov. 9, 2023. The kibbutz was attacked during the Hamas cross-border attack on Oct. 7, killing and capturing members of its community. In Hebrew, red stickers read "murdered", black stickers read "captured" and blue stickers read "released". (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue) All rights reserved. New Mexico Jewish Journal, Feb. 23, 2025.
With communal spirit, Nir Oz will rise again
February 23, 2025
By Bonnie Ellinger
1200 killed the first day
251 captured – 63 still captive in Gaza. 22 estimated to be alive.
846 Israeli soldiers were killed since that day
Exact figures are not known.
Update on Kibbutz Nir Oz as of Feb. 21, day 504, Shiri Bibas and her young sons from the kibbutz were brutally murdered in Gaza captivity. Oded Lifshitz, a founder of the kibbutz and a peace activist died in captivity. The four (bodies) have been returned to the kibbutz for burial. The Bibas family, in two public statements, has asked not to call for revenge but for the return of all the remaining hostages.
—B.E.
Editor's Note: News update, evening of Feb. 23rd - While twenty-two living hostages still remain in Gaza, today Netayanu announced he has delayed the release of Palestinian prisoners that was supposed to take place yesterday. Phase 1 is to conclude with a planned return of 4 bodies on Thursday. It is now unknown if or when Phase 2 will commence.
In the aftermath of October 7th, one place that symbolizes the agony, grief and torment of the massacre is Kibbutz Nir Oz. Twenty-five percent of its 400 members/residents were either brutally murdered or taken hostage, and much of the kibbutz was burned to the ground—forty-six murdered, seventy-one taken hostage into Gaza and about twenty from Nir Oz of the estimated 63 hostages still remain there. The indescribable savagery of the Hamas terrorists shocked the country and the world with its monstrous, carefully calculated assault.
What do we know about kibbutz Nir Oz? Located 4.3 miles from the Gaza border, it is one of the southern kibbutzim and moshavim – the long-established agricultural settlements bordering Gaza - known as the “Gaza Envelope”. The kibbutz also has one of the largest paint factories in Israel. Nir Oz was founded in 1955 by idealistic members of the secular Zionist youth movement Hashomer Hatzair. This movement, translated from Hebrew as The Young Guard, came into being in Galicia (Austro-Hungary) in 1913, with the goals of immigrating to Israel and living a cooperative lifestyle in Mandatory Palestine with equality between Jews and Arabs.
Members of Hashomer Hatzair organized defensive groups in Europe, were guerilla fighters, participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and fought in the Resistance. A leader in the uprising was Mordechai Aneilewicz, who was killed in May 1943. Kibbutz Yad Mordechai was named for him. Many of the men and women members of the Resistance in Europe such as Chajka Klinger, Tzvi Braun, Shifra Sokolka, Moshe Domb and Rachel Zilberberg were from Hashomer Hatzair. There were other Zionist youth movements whose members were Resistance fighters and heroes as well. One extraordinary example is Hannah Szenes (1921-1944), a young Hungarian poet who parachuted into Yugoslavia during WW ll to help save Hungarian Jews. She was captured, imprisoned, and tortured before being executed by firing squad. Her courage and defiance have made her one of Israel’s national heroes.
Hashomer Hatzair defined my youth. When I was 11 years old, my parents were looking for a summer camp for me, and friends of theirs recommended one in Liberty NY, which was run by Hashomer Hatzair. That summer was the beginning of an intense and joyful connection to the youth movement and its principles of strengthening Jewish identity, inculcating values of Judaism, socialism, equality and social justice, encouraging the importance of participation in Jewish life in the Diaspora, teaching the significance of peace and coexistence, and the belief in kibbutz life. Many of these values were very attractive to Jewish youth in the 1960s.
Kibbutz life, as a way to embody the above values, was the ultimate goal, and many of us in the movement made “Aliyah” (immigrated to Israel) and went to live on Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim. It wasn’t the answer for everyone. Some decided to forgo the communal experience altogether, others stayed for some years and still others of our “garin” (small group of people) are kibbutz members to this day. I was a kibbutz member for 5 years and spent 30 more in Israel before moving to Santa Fe 23 years ago.
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New Mexico Jewish Journal
Images of the Gulf of Mexico circulated this week on social media platforms in defiance of the order from the White House to rename it the Gulf of America. Shown here, a FaceBook post from France. Screenshot by Diane Joy Schmidt/all rights reserved/New Mexico Jewish Journal.
We Stand With the AP
February 23, 2025
To our subscribers:
The New Mexico Jewish Journal stands in support of the Associated Press, which has been banned from covering events at the White House and from boarding Airforce One, because they chose not to change the name "Gulf of Mexico" to the "Gulf of America" in their reporting.
After the AP filed suit against staff at the White House on Friday, February 21st, the Society of Professional Journalists issued a statement signed by 40 journalist organizations in support of the AP, writing "When leaders try to silence reporters through intimidation, legal threats and denial of access, they are not protecting the country; they are protecting themselves from scrutiny. This is how authoritarian regimes operate — by crushing dissent, punishing those who expose inconvenient facts and replacing truth with propaganda."
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New Mexico Jewish Journal
Llantos 1492: A Flamenco Opera!
February 23, 2025
by Ron Duncan Hart
Kudos to Opera Southwest and the National Institute of Flamenco for their remarkable production and World Premiere of Adam Del Monte’s Llantos 1492: A Flamenco Opera! Now, that’s a delightful twist—an opera sung in both Spanish and Hebrew about the Jews of Spain! Here is an opera made for New Mexico, set in Spain in 1492 as Jews were being expelled from that country, and the Inquisition was beginning its reign of terror against any Jew or Jewish convert who remained in Spanish lands.
My wife Gloria Abella Ballen and I attended the Wednesday night performance to what seemed to be a sold-out crowd at the National Hispanic Cultural Center. In a stroke of luck we sat next to Russ and Jane Resnik of Albuquerque, and we had an interesting conversation with them about Spanish Jews and their Diaspora. Then, at the intermission we had the delightful surprise of seeing Erika Rimson and then Judie Fein and Paul Ross, more Jewish presence.
After writing and teaching about Spanish Jews and the Diaspora of conversos or hidden Jews in the Americas for decades, I was anxious to see this opera, and it did not disappoint. I am not a qualified opera critic, but Del Monte’s music was strong and lifted in important moments by the flamenco guitar solos that he played personally. Nor am I a dance critic, but the choreographed dance routines were entertaining as opera should be, not quite the same as the power and passion of a Romani tablado in a cave in Sacromonte, the hill across from the Alhambra in Granada where Jews are said to have once lived.
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New Mexico Jewish Journal
Sarah Winger Joins the Jewish Community Foundation of New Mexico as New Executive Director
By Joanna Colangelo
February 23, 2025
In January, the Jewish Community Foundation of New Mexico (JCFNM) named Sarah Winger as the new Executive Director, assuming the role in March after the retirement of founding Executive Director, Erika Rimson.
Sarah joins the JCFNM from UNM Hospital where she was the Director of CareLink Services, a behavioral health program, and where she oversaw the Adult and Pediatric CareLink Teams, multiple state grants, and numerous Psychiatric Center initiatives. Sarah has a long history with the JCFNM, having served on the Foundation Board for five years and chairing the Grants Committee. She has also served on the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society Board and has been an active member of the broader New Mexico Jewish community for many years.
“I am so honored and incredibly excited to be stepping into the Executive Director role at the Jewish Community Foundation of New Mexico,” Sarah shares. “I look forward to building on Erika’s accomplishments, and working with our donors, community leaders and nonprofit partners to address the changing and critical needs within the Jewish community today and for generations to come.”
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New Mexico Jewish Journal
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