September 2011 - Jewish Federation of New Mexico

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12 The New Mexico Jewish Link A Se rv i c e o f t h e Je w i s h Fe d e r at i o n o f Ne w Me x i c o September 2011 Precious Objects by Alicia Oltuski; Diamonds, Family, and Resilience By Diane J. Schmidt Alicia Oltuski’s Precious Objects, a Story of Diamonds, Family, and a Way of Life is an entertaining and illuminating story of the diamond trade, emanating from her experience as the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish diamond merchants. Oltuski, a 27-yearold journalist, is a gifted story teller, whose book resonates all the more because it is told from first-hand experience. In her college writing classes, Oltuski began scribing stories about her family and the secretive world of the diamond trade. With a professor’s encouragement, these writings evolved into a book-length insider’s look at the history of the diamond business, which is inextricably tied to the Jewish merchants who brought their expertise from Europe to New York City. Saturday, Sept 24 Community Selichot Service at Congregation Albert, 9am-10pm 3800 Louisiana NE, ABQ 87110. Details: www.congregationalbert.org; 505-883-1818 Wednesday, Sept 28 Erev Rosh Hashanah Service, 7:30-9pm Thursday, Sept 29 Dawn Service at Volcano Day Use Area, Petroglyph National Monument, 6am Rosh Hashanah Children’s Service, 9-9:45am Rosh Hashanah Morning Service, 10am-1pm (childcare available) Vegetarian Kiddush & Potluck Lunch,1pm Tashlich on nearby acequia, 1:45pm (approx.) assemble in our courtyard Friday, Sept 30 Hiking & Mikvah in Jemez Mountains for 2nd Day Rosh Hashanah (Meet in the lower parking lot of Battleship Rock Picnic Area at 10am, OR to carpool, meet in Nahalat Shalom parking lot at 8:30am.) Friday, Oct 7 Kol Nidre Service, 7:30-9pm Saturday, Oct 8 Yom Kippur Children’s Service, 9-9:45am Morning Yom Kippur Service, 10am-2pm (childcare available) Lay-led topical discussion/study, 4pm Yizkor and N’ilah, 5:30-7pm Break the Fast Communal Vegetarian Potluck, 7pm Everyone is welcome to join us for services and events. Our open congregation welcomes interfaith and adoptive families. Thus formed the worldrenowned “diamond district” on 47th Street, where an estimated 90% of all diamonds bought and sold in the United States change hands today. Historically, Jews were barred from the mercantile world in Europe, with the exception of the Jewelers Guild. Consequently, many Jews learned to cut and polish gems. There was added incentive for Jews to put their wealth in diamonds. As Oltuski expounds, “During the Spanish Inquisition and when pogroms broke out, Jews needed to leave quickly and pack light. Even when their old national coinage became useless, diamonds were still precious in any country.” She continues, “The diamond business was virtually a paperless world because written contracts were too dangerous. A man’s promise was safer than his signature, and, still to this day, trust is the most vital component of the trade.” The story of diamonds and the dealers who handle these precious objects becomes allegorical in Oltuski’s hands: the diamond, the hardest type of carbon formed under the greatest stress, is resilient, durable, and brilliant, comparable to the Jewish people. She concludes, acutely, that it is fitting “for a people who have faced obliteration so many times to make the most resilient material on earth their trademark commodity.” On the day in August when we spoke over the phone about her book and the enthusiastic reviews it was receiving, the Dow was plunging 500 points. Naturally, I took the opportunity to ask if she thought that diamonds might be a good thing to invest in right now. Oltuski demurred. It wasn’t such a simple question to answer. Perhaps her best illustration of this point is the story of her own grandfather’s evolution as a trader. Drafted into the Russian army from a town on the border of Russia and Poland, Now is the best time to trim trees Opa Yankel was put to work on a commune in Siberia during WWII, helping to grow produce. When he and a friend were on a train returning to Moscow, they spotted a hill of salt left on a train platform. The enterprising Yankel quickly jumped off the train and poured “a whole world of salt down his pants and tied the cuffs tightly around his ankles with his shoelaces.” As they continued their journey they came to a salt-less village, where he traded the salt for tobacco. Soon, he sold the tobacco for rubles. At the end of the war, he landed in the Displaced Persons camp in Berlin, a world Oltuski describes as, “...filled with people who had lost everything, and so the price of things was fluid. After all, trade is what a man needs or wants at a particular instant.” There, he met a Berliner who had rough diamonds he wanted to sell. The man agreed to give Yankel one diamond on trust to see if he could sell it. Yankel had the dull stone polished, then he found a Greek who was willing to trade him his BMW sportscar for the diamond. Another man heard about the car and wanted it; he offered Yankel a thousand pairs of shoes in trade. In one day, Oltuski’s grandfather liquidated the entire quantity of shoes, ending up with a sack of money. When the German returned for his payment for the diamond, Yankel paid him, not with the money he’d acquired, but with food he’d gotten from the UNRRA: condensed milk, honey, and marmalade. From these early experiences, Opa Yankel had learned the market place rules of buying and selling and “came out of hell with diamonds in his pockets.” Now, sitting down to a Friday night dinner in America, surrounded by a family even larger than he had lost during the war in Europe, the story begins again, “A man came up to me in the camp and said, ‘Do you want to buy a diamond?’ Such a simple question, a variation of the question he and the men at the (Diamond) Club ask each other every day, and yet it has changed everything.” Oltuski ends her book by acknowledging that the process of writing her story has brought her a new appreciation of the diamond trade, as well as of the family secrets she never realized she had accumulated, until she began to write. Author Alicia Oltuski will speak at the JCC Book Fest luncheon on Wednesday, October 26 at 11:30 am. Tickets may be purchased on line at www. jccabq.org or by calling 348-4518. Non-member ticket rates are: $100 each or $300 for 3 or more and $18 each for students and Active-Duty Service Personnel For those electing to become members of Nahalat Shalom, by 12/31/2011, paid ticket costs will be applied to the annual pledge. For more information, please visit www.nahalatshalom.org or call 505-343-8227 Services are held at Congregation Nahalat Shalom 3606 Rio Grande Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM 87107 (East side of Rio Grande between Candelaria and Griegos) Parking is limited. Please download the parking map from www.nahalatshalom.org to see authorized spaces. R Riverside______ “Affordable Dignity” Funeral Home Meeting the Needs of the Jewish Community Traditional Service $2695.00 (includes Tahara Room, shroud, orthodox casket, stationary, candle, Sunday services) Charles M. Finegan Funeral Director/owner 225 San Mateo Blvd. NE James J. Edwards, CFSP, Senior Director Albuquerque, NM 87108 764-9663
September 2011 A Service of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico The New Mexico Jewish Link 13 Appetite for America by Stephen Fried Opens the 2011 JCC Book Fest By Diane J. Schmidt Both newcomers and long-time students of the history of the Southwest will be delighted to discover Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West, by Stephen Fried. Fred Harvey came to New York from England at 15 and worked his way up from washing dishes to creating the first restaurant and hotel chain across America, along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe train line. In doing so, he and his heirs managed to shape a whole popularized culture of the romanticized West that New Mexicans take for granted today. While managing train ticket sales in Leavenworth, Kansas, Fred Harvey realized that hungry travelers had to leave the relative comfort of the Pullman and eat dismal quality food in a rush in train station establishments. The enterprising Harvey opened his first lunch counter, and quickly established his trademark good food, fast service, and a standard of excellence that would make his restaurants hugely successful. He was able to get fresh food delivered to his restaurants by refrigerated boxcars on the AT & SF. The restaurant of the recently remodeled La Posada in Winslow, Arizona reflects some of the glory of the early days, serving memorable meals unequaled for miles in any direction. La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe is also part of the Harvey legacy. Fried credits the Harvey dynasty with bringing millions of people to the Grand Canyon, and commercializing Native American jewelry. In particular, “a cigar-chomping German-Jewish immigrant” Harvey employee, Herman Schweizer, who ran the Harvey House in Gallup, induced Navajo craftspeople to produce quantities of Native jewelry and art for the growing numbers of travelers to the Southwest. Eventually, as Fried writes, “Schweizer became the driving force behind the powerful Harvey Indian art business.” At the Alvarado depot in Albuquerque, a Harvey employee named Mary Colter, a member of the Arts and Crafts Movement brought out from Minnesota, took the items that Native Americans were selling on train platforms and put them into a museum of her own inspiration. Another creation was an “Indian village,” where Native American employees hired through the Hubbell Trading Post were to get busy making things when trains were stopped at the station. Today, parts of the Harvey collections can be seen at the New Mexico History Museum and the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Fried also tells the remarkable history of the Harvey Girls. Originally, the Harvey restaurants were staffed by African-American men, a workforce that had been established by George Pullman for his Pullman sleeping cars. But when a fight broke out among the men who worked at a Harvey restaurant, Harvey fired them all, and brought in single white women from Kansas and parts further east. This was the first real opportunity for many single women to travel away from home, with the possibility of find a husband out west. Part of the contract stated that they had to work at least six months before getting married. The Harvey hotels had an undeniable influence on New Mexico architecture. Charles Whittlesley, a protégé of architect Louis Sullivan, designed Albuquerque’s Alvarado terminal in the Mission Revival style. Mary Colter created an American vernacular style for the interiors. Sadly, despite protests, the Alvarado was torn down in 1970. The transportation center that exists today, built in 2002, mimics the Alvarado’s façade. The book is as good a read as a Harvey meal, includes an appendix of Harvey recipes, and is sparking a revival of Harvey interest. Author Stephen Fried will speak at the JCC Book Fest on Sunday, October 23 at 10:00 am. A Harvey House-inspired luncheon will follow at 11:30 am. Tickets may be purchased on line at www.jccabq. org or by calling 348-4518. Free Technology Offered to Those with Hearing Loss New Mexicans who are deaf or hard of hearing can now obtain amplified cordless phones or a visual alert system at no cost thanks to the New Mexico Commission for Deaf and Hard of Hearing (NMCDHH). The new phones amplify incoming sounds and remove unwanted and distracted noises, much like a hearing aid. They also boost outgoing speech up to 15 decibels, making communication much easier for people who have trouble hearing and speaking loudly. The visual alert system can monitor activity throughout a home, including doorbells, telephone and videophone calls, children’s cries or motion. Upon detection, bright flashing lights and large backlit icons alert users to the activity. New Mexico residents who are certified as having any level of hearing loss can obtain these resources by completing an application, providing a copy of a landline phone bill, a copy of an audiogram or hearing test and a copy of a driver’s license or state issued identification card. For more information, contact NMCDHH at 1-800-489-8536 or http://www. cdhh.state.nm.us/TEDP.aspx. A warm homelike community dedicated to maintaining individuals’ independence, dignity and respect while providing the best care in the business • Home Cooked, Nutrious Meals & Snacks • Professional Care Management • Nurse On Staff • Personlized Care Plans • 24 Hr Medication Assistance • High Staff to Resident Ratios • Activites & Musical Guests • Memory Care 604 Gral Trevino Dr. SE., Rio Rancho, NM 87124 High Holiday Services Congregation Bnai Israel High Holiday Schedule 2011 / 5772 Selichot at Congregation Albert Saturday, September 24 8:00 P.M ............. Community-wide Selichot program Rosh Hashanah Wednesday, September 28 8:00 P.M ............. Erev Rosh Hashanah Service Thursday, September 29 8:30 A.M ............ Morning Service 11:00 A.M .......... Jr. Congregation Service 11:30 A.M .......... Alternative Musaf Service (in the social hall) 8:00 P.M. ........... Evening Service Friday, September 30 8:30 A.M. ........... Morning Service Friday, September 30 6:00 P.M. ............ Shabbat Shuvah Service Saturday, October 1 9:00 A.M. ........... Shabbat Shuvah Service Kever Avot Sunday, October 2 12:00 P.M. .......... Cemetery Service at Fairview New Location Opening Spring 2012 L’Shana Tova! Please call for a personal tour of our community today (505) 715-9649 Email- casadeshalom@q.com Yom Kippur Friday, October 7 6:20 P.M. ............ Kol Nidre Service Saturday, October 8 9:00 A.M. ........... Yom Kippur Service 11:00 A.M. ......... Jr. Congregation Service 5:20 P.M. ............ Minchah, Yizkor & Neilah Services 7:10 P.M. ............ Havdalah and Shofar 7:25 P.M. ............ Break-the-Fast Sukkot Thursday, October 13 9:00 A.M. ........... Sukkot Service Friday, October 14 9:00 A.M. ........... Sukkot Service Wednesday, October 19 7:00 A.M. ........... Hoshanna Rabah Service Thursday, October 20 9:00 A.M. ........... Shemini Atzeret Service 10:30 A.M. ......... Yizkor Service 7:00 P.M. ............ Erev Simchat Torah Service Friday, October 21 9:00 A.M. ........... Simchat Torah Service Congregation B’nai Israel welcomes members, prospective members and the unaffiliated in our Jewish Community to attend our High Holiday services this year. We feel very strongly that every Jew should have a place to pray and experience the High Holidays. Prospective members and unaffiliated however, will need to have a ticket in order to attend. The cost of a ticket is $100 each. Ticket costs may be applied to a membership. Nobody with financial hardship will be turned away, but still must present a ticket. Please contact our synagogue office during regular business hours, (266-0155), prior to September 21st. to make arrangements. Free childcare will be provided for the High Holiday services.
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September 2011 - Jewish Federation of New Mexico

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