OUR MID-APRIL ISSUE includes “War: A Mirror to Ourselves.” “To Be a Jew Is a Verb: A Las Cruces Family’s Century of Showing Up." "Joni and Leonard." "Yom HaShoah at the Roundhouse” with the Mayor of Santa Fe and both Majority and Minority Democratic and Republican House Representatives, plus a Yom HaShoah commentary, and “Voters Will Decide About Paying Legislators.”

Upcoming community-wide celebrations of Yom Ha’atzmaut will be in Albuquerque April 22nd at Congregation Albert, and Yom Hazikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut in Santa Fe April 26th at Temple Beth Shalom. Reservations are required so be sure to click on icons above and scroll down after the story links to see all the flyers of events coming up for the next month.

Find your people - your stories, voices and perspectives. Award-winning, independent Jewish journalism for readers who want more than the headlines - across New Mexico and beyond.

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News events occurred with particular significance for Jews in the last weeks: Autocrat Viktor Orbán was defeated in Hungary’s general election — and ahead of it Hungarian Jews were divided, caught between the protection his immigration policies afforded and the rot of his corruption. J.D. Vance and the Project 2025 crowd were reminded that autocracy is not, in fact, so popular.

Meanwhile, New Mexico's Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) joined Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) in introducing a 25th Amendment bill to create a bipartisan commission to assess presidential fitness — aspirationally, at least for this first try. The move followed Trump's closing of the Strait of Hormuz (then reopening — abracadabra? or not — oops), his potshots at the newly elected Pope Leo XIV — a Chicagoan, and the first American pope — and his posting of an image of himself as Jesus Christ.

Sufficiently distracted? Perhaps you'd miss: that the government just declared the Epstein investigation complete with no further prosecutions expected, cut $11 million in Catholic Charities funding in Florida for unaccompanied minors, and released plans for a Triumphal Arch for the USA’s 250th — rather like what Hitler once envisioned. We trust you are sufficiently aggravated. Apparently our Republican-controlled Congress won’t act until the markets — and the global economy — wobble sufficiently, being jerked around, until they lose balance and fall off this flat earth.

In case you missed our April 1 issue, Mikey Weinstein was quoted on the front page of the Washington Post the day after we published our first Spectrum profile — “From the Reagan White House to a Watchdog for Religious Freedom: The Life and Times of Mikey Weinstein” — the battle against religious coercion in the U.S. military has never been more urgent. “His Card Sat on My Desk” reveals what Jew(ish) organization the Lannan Foundation gave a half-million dollars to — and the personal history that led this editor to assign “Jeffrey Haas: Civil Rights Lawyer, Anti-Zionist" to veteran reporter Ellen Marks.

Judith Fein and Paul Ross delivered a literary tour de force attending a 600-year-old Easter pageant in Spain among the secret Jews of Catalonia, "Snails, An Antisemitic Play, Roman Soldiers, a Seder, and Catalonian Secret Jews." And Gail Rubin — our community’s very own “Doyenne of Death®” — introduced films from her new book 98.6 Mortality Movies to See Before You Die. The 2026 awards for NM Jewish Journal have begun to roll in — seventeen so far, and with the international Rockowers from the American Jewish Press Association still to come. Oh, the suspense!

Below: all story links. Do you just see text and not the picture links? Go back up top and click View in Browser, and all will be revealed! Then be sure to scroll through all the Event Flyers covering the second half of April and into May and beyond. Show your interest — click on them!

Mid-April Stories:

War: A Mirror to Ourselves

By Ron Duncan Hart In 1901, shortly before becoming the 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, a Republican, famously said, “Speak softly and carry a big stick—you will go far.” He went on to say, “If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick

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“To Be a Jew Is a Verb”: A Las Cruces Family’s Century of Showing Up

By the New Mexico Jewish Journal Debra Wechter Friedman grew up watching her parents build a synagogue from scratch in southern New Mexico. Now she’s asking what the next generation of Jewish giving looks like in a state that rarely makes the philanthropic map. Debra Wechter Friedman remembers exactly

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A Rabbi, a Jazz Singer, and the music that binds them: Joni & Leonard take the stage

By Ellen Futterman, St. Louis Jewish Light For Danielle Wertz and Robbie Schaefer, the paths that led them to each other—and to their intimate cabaret show, “Both Sides Now: The Music and Lives of Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen”—are as layered and lyrical as the music they perform.

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Yom HaShoah at the Roundhouse

Photos by Ron Duncan Hart As has been the custom for many years, Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, was commemorated at the state capital in Santa Fe this year. The event was attended by Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia and by Democratic and Republican representatives: Majority Floor Leader Rep. Reena

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Voters will decide about paying legislators

By Merilee Dannemann If New Mexico legislators were paid a salary, what would you expect them to do that they have not been doing up till now? New Mexico is the only state legislature where legislators are not paid something like a salary, though they do receive per diem and

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Yom HaShoah

By Ron Duncan Hart April 18, 2026 Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, is a day to remember the unthinkable killing of 6 million Jews and other millions of Roma, communists, gay people and political dissidents by Germans crazed by Nazi supremacy ideology in the 1940s. Why have some groups

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APRIL 1st Issue

From the Reagan White House to a Watchdog for Religious Freedom: The Life and Times of Mikey Weinstein in

By Ron Duncan Hart I first learned about “Mikey” Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation from a Harper’s Magazine article entitled, “Jesus Killed Mohammed: The Crusade for a Christian Military.” In that 2009 article the author Jeff Sharlet wrote about an American military squadron in Iraqi that had

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His Card Sat on My Desk: Introducing the Spectrum Series

Editor’s Letter by Diane Joy Schmidt Preparing for presenting the article about Jeffrey Haas that appears in this issue was difficult for me on both a personal and political level. His life had cast a shadow on mine twice before, though we never met until this year. I knew him

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Jeffrey Haas: Civil Rights Lawyer, Anti-Zionist

By Ellen Marks If it’s noon on Wednesday, you’re sure to find Jeffrey Haas at the corner of Paseo de Peralta and Old Santa Fe Trail in Santa Fe, protesting on behalf of Palestinians. The 83-year-old Jewish co-founder of the group now called Santa Feans for Justice in

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SNAILS, AN ANTI-SEMITIC PLAY, ROMAN SOLDIERS, A SEDER, AND CATALONIAN SECRET JEWS

by Judith Fein When I met an affable local guide in Catalunya, I innocently asked if anything unusual was happening during the current Semana Santa or Holy Week, which included both Easter and Passover. “Well,” she began, “perhaps you have heard of the Catalonian desserts called brunyols, which are fried

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Jewish Funeral Traditions on Film

By Gail Rubin, CT, The Doyenne of Death ® Gail Rubin’s new book, 98.6 Mortality Movies to See Before You Die will be published April 16. It is available now for pre-sale at: https://agoodgoodbye.com/product/pre-sale-98-6-mortality-movies-to-see-before-you-die/The Albuquerque Chevra Kaddisha will hold its (very approximately!) annual meeting

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Republicans for fair elections?

by Merilee Dannemann President Trump is talking publicly about his plans to undermine the 2026 midterm election. I’m relieved. Why relieved? Because now that he is talking about it openly, we are also starting to hear about what’s being done, mostly by the states, to counteract those plans.

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New Mexico Jewish Journal: The 2026 Awards Are Already Rolling In

Oh the Suspense! We have preliminary results from two professional journalist contests for our stories published in our second year: the regional Society of Professional Journalists and the New Mexico Press Women awards – 17 first-place and recognized entries so far, with more to come. And we will also be hearing

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15 PASSOVER SEDERS TO ATTEND IN NEW MEXICO & Trinidad, CO!

15 Passover Seder events are listed in our Passover Seder Guide to NM, w RSVP deadlines. First Night Seders are April 1st. Second Night, April 2nd. Also, an early Community seder March 28 and a Pesach BBQ April 5th. Sign up to read and receive our newsletter and future Holiday Resource Guides!

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The March 16 Newsletter has story links going back to February. See what you missed!:AND we have a whole tab showing our PAST ISSUES.

Past Issues - New Mexico Jewish Journal

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To keep up with all the news: More Than 50 Reliable and Varied Sources of News and Opinion about Israel and the U.S.

COMMUNITY EVENTS!! from our COMMUNITY SUPPORTER ADVERTISERS

Right now, this morning, it's already April 19th:

ANNUAL JEWELRY Sale Congregation Albert SISTERHOOD APR 19-20

APR. 22 COMMUNITY-WIDE YOM HA'ATZMAUT CELEBRATION Congregation Albert, Albuquerque RESERVATIONS required: https://www.congregationalbert.org/form/YHAreg

JCC APR 23 at 3 p.m. IN-PERSON from Boston ALLEGRA GOODMAN AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR KIRKUS Fiction & GOODREADS Choice. It's the Book Fest's final event for this season and Phyllis Wolf's too.

Sunday April 26 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Community Celebration Yom Hazikaron & Yom Ha'azmaut Temple Beth Shalom, Santa Fe. Food, Music, Dancing. Reservations Required Honor & Celebrate Israel Together - Form

UPCOMING MAY 10th Israel's reporter for the NEW YORK TIMES
Isabel Kershner, "Israel Today, And the Battle for Its Inner Soul" Interview with Dr. Bonnie Ellinger. Distinguished Lecture Series.

MAY 13 7 p.m. CONCERT "Memory of Sepharad"at Congregation Beit Tikva in collaboration Institute for Tolerance Studies - get Tickets now!

AT THE JCC, Learn Mah Jongg!

https://jccabq.org/meeting/mah-jongg

MAY 20th 6pm on zoom The Color of Jews, Dr. Sarah Leiter
Visit our website: NEW MEXICO JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY

UPCOMING: JUNE 7th NM JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY's Annual Business Meeting, 1 pm at Temple Beth Shalom Santa Fe
SARA KOPLIK - THE JEWS OF AFGHANISTAN 1:45

SHABBAT WITH FRIENDS brings **SHABBAT DELIGHT**

MINYAN MIDBAR: FIRST MEETING to be held APRIL 25th at Unitarian Universalist Santa Fe, 107 W. Barcelona Rd., Santa Fe

Explore the Jewish Experience!

JCF of NM - SUPPORT THE Neil Isbin COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP Program

TEMPLE BETH SHALOM - COME AS YOU ARE - SANTA FE

Welcome to Congregation B'nai Israel Albuquerque

JUNE 14 Jewish Ethics and Warfare with Jonathan Crane, Emory University, in an interview with Halley Faust

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Shabbat with Friends: Recapturing Together the Joy of Shabbat
New Mexico Jewish Historical Society

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