Harvey Buchalter's Two Callings: Scholar of Yiddish, Sculptor in Wood and Stone

Story and Photos by Ruth E. Thaler-Carter

Many people with stellar professional careers also have a creative side that provides deep satisfaction. A noted Albuquerque expert in Jewish history and translation of Yiddish literature with a respected career in education is also a fascinating artist in wood and stone, with projects that include works reflecting Jewish culture and installing internationally sourced tile in and around his Albuquerque home.

Well-known to the New Mexico Jewish community as a frequent presenter and writer about Jewish history in the state, Harvey Buchalter is a native of the Bronx.

What might not be as well-known is his identity as an artist.

Beyond teaching

While serving as an educator was important to Buchalter, his field of research and personal passion has been the history of Jewish immigration in New Mexico.

Buchalter grew up in the Bronx and graduated from Brooklyn College with a degree in English in 1968. "I didn't make art at all during college," Buchalter said. "I put all of my energy into my English major."

That was largely due to his father, who discouraged the idea of art as a career — but the urge to create never really left him.

Buchalter's parents embody much of what he's learned and shares about Jewish history in New Mexico: His father was from Russia/Ukraine and his mother from Poland. They met at Camp Nitgedaiget, a Jewish socialist summer camp near Beacon, New York.

Buchalter arrived in New Mexico for Peace Corps training in the summer of 1968, “fresh out of Brooklyn College,” and was in Bolivia around that September as a community development Peace Corps volunteer. “It was a very harsh environment and I was actually malnourished for a time, so I came back to New Mexico” around September 1969, “where I had previously met my soon-to-be-wife.” He’s been here ever since and has raised his family here.

His wife Christine shared his commitment to service as a VISTA volunteer, and also became a teacher. They raised their two daughters as Jewish and have a granddaughter and grandson. One daughter is a Hebrew calligrapher and educator; the other a fifth-grade teacher.

"At some point, I decided that I wanted to be a college professor, so I started graduate school in Latin American history and Spanish," Buchalter recalled. He earned his MA at the University of New Mexico in 1976.

He first taught at Los Lunas Junior High School, then Harrison Middle School, wrapping up his career as a teacher/counselor at the School on Wheels High School, a pioneering alternative high school in Albuquerque's South Valley for kids not in regular high schools. "I taught all subjects," he recalled of those high school years. "We had a little family." He continued as a mentor-teacher for three years at the University of New Mexico.

Throughout the years, Buchalter also became a translator of Yiddish literature. He continued studying Yiddish and immigrant Jewish history, eventually becoming an instructor of Yiddish in the University of New Mexico German Department. He has translated three yizkor books — memoirs of survivors of the Holocaust — from Yiddish to English, and has written and published articles about the Eastern European landsmanshaft societies — self-help societies that flourished and "grounded" immigrants as they made their way in their new land. He still reads Yiddish classics in their original with a group that meets weekly for that purpose.

His research over the years has focused on Jews in New Mexico, especially the 20th century, but also "the whole history from Europe," he said. "It's interesting how Jews kept and built a community together."

Within all of it was the artist. Since his youth, Buchalter has always made things, starting with carvings from brown Castile soap, but it took until the 1970s for the artist to fully emerge.

Community connections and beyond

Buchalter has been active in Congregation B'nai Israel, where he occasionally chants the Haftorah — "a real challenge" — and has served as president of the congregation three times.

One of his major community involvements is as an early, and continuous, member of the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society. He served on the society's board in the 1990s and two recent terms from about 2011–2015; and has contributed dozens of articles to the Legacy newsletter, many that are histories of Jewish merchants in Albuquerque.

One article included translations from the Yiddish of the poetry of Aron Straser, who survived the Holocaust and eventually moved to New Mexico. Straser became a member of Buchalter’s Yiddish Vinkel and was “a wonderful reader of Yiddish literature who sometimes read his poems to our group. He also had a beautiful voice and sometimes officiated as the cantor at Congregation B’nai Israel,” Buchalter said.

Another article was about his 400-plus-page translation of Israel Rouchomovsky's My Life, also from the Yiddish — the story of the biggest art fraud of the early-20th century. A supposed ancient masterpiece, a gold Scythian tiara, was sold to the Louvre for 200,000 francs. When its authenticity was questioned, a French forger tried to claim credit for the tiara in 1903. Rouchomovsky came forward to prove he was the innocent maker; questionable antiquities dealers had commissioned it from him in 1894, paying him 1,800 rubles (about 1,500 francs), leading him to believe it was to be a gift. The controversy made him and his artistry famous worldwide.

Buchalter received the society's Hurst Award for his contributions to New Mexico Jewish history through his extensive writing and presentations about how that history and culture have made a lasting impact on the state.

Jewish-oriented entities aren't Buchalter's only outlets for his research; recently, for instance, he addressed the Albuquerque Newcomers' Club about "The Jewish Immigrant Experience in New Mexico."

Art as fulfillment

While teaching was and research still is clearly of passionate importance to Buchalter, he began giving his artistic side its expression in the 1970s and sold his first piece in 1979. He still sells his work and has people who collect his pieces, as well as some in museum collections. That creative activity both takes him beyond and includes his known expertise: Many of his wood and stone pieces incorporate Hebrew lettering, sayings, and phrases that reflect his Jewish background and interests.

These days, Buchalter calls his home his sculpture warehouse, but it feels more like an art gallery. Sculptural works in various media fill the rooms on walls, shelves, and surfaces, and colorful tile pieces are inset in walls both inside and outdoors. The tile work, he said, "is just so beautiful — fascinating and timeless, and permanent. The colors are so vibrant."

Buchalter has no formal training as an artist. Seeing his detailed, evocative pieces in various media makes it surprising to learn that "everything I've done has been self-taught," he said.

It's hard to imagine a more fulfilling and inspiring combination of formal research, community service, and artistic expression.

Ruth E. Thaler-Carter is the daughter of Holocaust survivors and an award-winning freelance writer/editor who moved to Albuquerque in 2025. Visit her at https://www.writerruth.com/.
Ruth is active in SouthWest Writers, New Mexico Writers, New Mexico Press Women, and the Cat Writers’ Association, National Association of Independent Writers and Editors, Society of Professional Journalists, and Editorial Freelancers Association. She works with publications, nonprofits, businesses, and authors in the arts, law, public relations, retirement, community activities, and more. She has three generations of family in Corrales and owns the An American Editor blog; Communication Central, which hosts the “Be a Better Freelancer”^® conference; and Publishing with Flair, which helps independent authors. 

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