 he New Mexico Jewish Historical Society (NMJHS) has
launched a project central to its mission: to preserve the history
of the pioneer Jews of New Mexico. To this end, project leaders
will research the history of twenty New Mexico Jewish pioneer
families extensively and record and document their photos, memorabilia
and private papers. Interviews with family members, historians
and other experts will then be professionally videotaped. It
is central to the NMJHS mission to make this history available
to scholars and the public at large. Therefore, all of this
material will be archived and made available to the public.
This project will help the public understand the role Jewish
pioneers played in building New Mexico, the social implications
of their role, and how they maintained their Jewish identity.
It will also reveal much about |
|
territorial
New Mexico and the special place it has as the earliest successful
model of the multi-cultural complexity and fluidity that America
represents.
This project is unique in that it seeks to capture the experience
and the spirit of the Jewish pioneer era in New Mexico by preserving
the memories of the immediate descendants of that generation.
This project recognizes the contribution of the existing body
of secondary works on the Jewish pioneers of New Mexico. However,
this undertaking diverges from them by utilizing oral history
and preserving photos and other memorabilia of Jewish pioneers
of New Mexico to provide an additional perspective on the period.
Although the project will begin with twenty Jewish pioneer
families who have living first generation descendants to tell
their stories, we hope and expect to find more families as our
research progresses |
|
.
The vast majority of the first generation descendants of New
Mexico's Jewish pioneer families are over eighty years old; there
is an urgency to collect their stories now or they will be lost.
There will be nobody left who can identify the faces in their
old photos or tell the intimate stories about their pioneer ancestors.
NMJHS seeks to collaborate with the University of New Mexico's
Department of History and the Center for Regional Studies (CRS)
on this project. UNM faculty will serve as consultants on the
project and draw on graduate students to help carry it out.
Graduate student activities may include: researching the pioneer
families, developing the interview and research questions, conducting
the video history interviews, training and managing volunteer
research assistants, developing educational materials and booklets
from the material gathered and involvement in producing a public
radio show airing the interviews. |
