One of the oldest Catholic dioceses in the United States, it has been forced to sell properties to help pay a settlement agreement that resulted from a clergy sex abuse scandal.

 Ye aka Kanye ---“death con 3” on all Jewish people - dem Jews control the money -- and I'm Jewish - all black people are Jews - Jews got a good nose for a deal... Kushner & The Saudis...

 

Fast fundraising saves Las Vegas Jewish history

The Jewish community of Las Vegas, New Mexico, orchestrated a fundraising effort that allowed it to buy this building, constructed in the 1880s as the first Jewish place of worship in New Mexico Territory, from the Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe

It seemed like an impossible dream. Raise $200,000 in just a few weeks to buy back a priceless part of a community’s heritage.

That was the challenge facing the Jewish citizens of Las Vegas, New Mexico, who seized on the opportunity to purchase a building constructed in Las Vegas in the 1880s to serve as the first Jewish place of worship in New Mexico Territory.

The synagogue, Temple Montefiore, was sold to the Archdiocese of Santa Fe in the 1950s when the number of Las Vegas Jewish residents had dwindled to very few. But recently, the archdiocese put the building up for sale, and the Jewish community, which experienced a resurgence in the 1990s, responded by setting up a GoFundMe account and appealing for donations throughout the country.

Amazingly, within a month, the community raised considerably more than $300,000, enough to purchase the old synagogue building and an adjacent parcel of land with a house on it that the archdiocese was also selling.

“I’m happy and excited,” said Diana Presser, a board member of the Las Vegas Jewish Community, her words tumbling over each other in an ecstatic rush during a phone interview. “Twenty years of longing for something and then having it presented to you. God works in mysterious ways.”

‘Totally thankful’

The purchase was made the last week in September during the celebration of Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year.

“We are always excited to have a new year, but this year there was a palpable sense of excitement because we were finally in reach of purchasing the building,” Presser said. “I led the services for the first Sabbath of the new year in a building we now own.”

A plaque recognizes the significance of the building at 901 Eighth St. in Las Vegas, New Mexico. The city’s Jewish community recently purchased back the old synagogue from the Archdiocese of Santa Fe.

Lewis Terr, an Albuquerque attorney with Las Vegas roots and president of the Montefiore Cemetery Association, played a vital role in closing the sale.

“Everyone is just totally thankful for the outpouring of support from a grassroots level and the generosity of private donors,” Terr said. “I am not easily moved, but it is quite remarkable that we were able to raise that amount of money in less than a month. Once people knew about it, they just wanted to contribute.”

Larry Ilfeld works for an Albuquerque commercial real estate company and is the great-nephew of Charles Ilfeld, an influential Jewish merchant who settled in Las Vegas just after the Civil War. He learned about the effort to purchase the synagogue in a Journal article.

“I have a pretty extensive family,” he said. “A lot of them are from New Mexico, but they don’t all live here now. Some live in Wyoming or California. I got in touch with them, and a lot of the family donated.”

Zelda McCrossen, treasurer of the Las Vegas Jewish Community, said donations came in from all over the country and from outside the country as well.

A dream come true

The synagogue was built on Douglas Avenue in Las Vegas, but was moved in 1922 to its present location at 901 Eighth St. In recent years, it has served as a Newman Center chapel, a place of worship and community for Catholic college students. The archdiocese put it up for sale to pay a small portion of a multi-million dollar settlement with victims of clerical sexual abuse. The deadline for the purchase was the end of September.

Originally, the Jewish community’s plan had been to raise $200,000 to buy only the old synagogue building.

“But the synagogue is on a parcel of land with (another) building on it,” Terr said. “We had to buy the whole thing.”

Presser said that pushed the price tag to $352,000, but the fundraising campaign took in the asking cost and more.

“We had a bunch of money left over,” she said. The surplus will be used to make improvements to the temple.

“We are getting a toilet that works, and the stucco needs work,” Presser said. “The house next door will be a museum of some kind.

“It was a dream and at long last it has come true.”

 

https://www.abqjournal.com/2539073/fast-fundraising-saves-las-vegas-jewish-history.html