On 11 November 2012

A Day To Remember: This Sunday, the Albuquerque Jewish community remembers our war veterans, our Holocaust survivors, and all their loved ones.

Congregation Albert   10:00 am

CA's special guest speaker is Jim Stanek, founder of Paws and Stripes™.
This program is FREE and open to all!  Advanced registration is not required.

Jim Stanek was sent home from his third tour in Iraq for injuries he received on deployment. After nine months in treatment at Brook Army Medical Center in San Antonio, TX, Jim discovered that the most comfort and relief he found was in the presence of therapy dogs.

In May of 2010, Jim and his wife tried to obtain a trainer for their rescue dog, Sarge. They soon found out how difficult and expensive this process is. After being either turned down or unable to pay for service dogs from multiple organizations, the two looked at one another and agreed to start their own organization for veterans.

Incorporated in June of 2010, Paws and Stripes™ was born. Now, he has trained his own service dog, a process that he has found rewarding, relaxing, and more effective than any pill or therapy session.

Congregation B'nai Israel  10:00 am
 

Robert Sears entered the Marine Corps in July, 1983 and retired as a Gunnery Sergeant in Oct., 2003. Gunnery Sergeant Sears served as a radio operator, rifleman, fire team leader, squad leader, Platoon Sergeant and Commander, as well as tactics instructor and drill instructor.

He was assigned to Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, 3rd Battalion 9th Marines, Instructor at School of Infantry, 1st Battalion 7th Marines.  Also, 1st Recruit Training Regiment, 1st Tank Battalion, 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance  Battalion. 4th Royal Australian Regiment.

Sears’ final assignment was as Drill Instructor at Marine Corps Training and Education command.  He did combat tours in Desert Shield, Storm as well as Restore Hope in Somalia. After retirement, Sears became a Sheriff’s Deputy and is currently assigned to the SWAT team.

His awards are Navy/Marine Corps Jump Wing, Kuwait Liberation Medal and the Kuwait Liberation Medal K, Sea Service Ribbon 7th award, Meritorious Unit Citation, Navy Unit Citation, National Defense Medal, Good Conduct Medal 7th award, Combat Action Ribbon 2nd Award. Humanitarian Service Medal, Navy/Marine Corps Achievement Medal 2nd award, Navy/Marine Corps Accommodation Medal, Distinguished Service Medal.

Cost: $10 per person  Veterans Free!

New Mexico Holocaust & Tolerance Museum  2:00 pm

- At Albuquerque Academy -

Corrie Remembers is a powerful one-woman dramatization by Susan Sandager, who portrays Corrie ten Boom, a Christian woman who hid Jews in her home during the Holocaust.

Tickets are available from Brown Paper Tickets or at the door. A sumptuous dessert reception follows the performance.

This museum fundraiser will serve as a remembrance of Kristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) which occurred throughout much of Nazi Germany in 1938 on the nights of November 9 and 10. Organized bands of Nazis torched synagogues and vandalized Jewish homes, schools and businesses. Close to 100 Jews were killed. In the aftermath, 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and sent to Nazi concentration camps.

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As for Abq Jew: here is a tribute to the WWII Marines who fought in the Pacific. The music is John Williams' "Hymn to the Fallen" from Saving Private Ryan.

 

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Shabbat Shalom, Albuquerque!

Good Shabbos, New Mexico!

Remember.

Letter From Cloudcroft

Opening on Saturday November 10: A letter written in 1946 at the Lodge Resort in Cloudcroft, New Mexico will be opened at a historic public symposium after 66 years in the dark.

Surrounded by sisters, family, friends and scholars, filmmaker Melinda Hess will carefully open her father’s unopened letter on Saturday, November 10, 2012, Veteran’s Day weekend where it was penned – The Lodge Resort.

Letter From Cloudcroft

Saturday November 10

The Lodge Resort

What is this all about? Abq Jew only found out about this a few days ago, but here's the scoop:

While daughter/filmmaker Hess was unpacking an old suitcase stowed inside unopened boxes a few years ago she discovered a bundle of yellowed letters. Each envelope was chronologically numbered in pencil and addressed to her grandparents in New York City. Postmarked 1946, each with the return address - “Private S. Hess, Research & Development- Sub Office Rockets,” Fort Bliss Texas, Hess sat on her studio floor reading letter after letter.

Astonished by the voice of her 21-year-old Jewish father detailing his daily activities, Southwest food discoveries and surprising observations as his military assignment unfolded revealing over time, a top secret missile development project between the U.S. and former German rocket scientists. Leafing through the pile of letters Hess noticed one envelope adorned with a beautiful cloud graphic logo with the ornate script, “The Lodge,” Cloudcroft, NM, and it was still sealed.

As Hess reached for a letter opener, her partner and fellow filmmaker [Patricia] Antelles stopped her abruptly, saying “one day you’ll open this on camera” and the “Letter From Cloudcroft” journey and film was born.

So! This is all about Operation Paperclip! Here is some more background:

In the aftermath of WWII and the Holocaust, the historic collaboration between the U.S. government and German rocket scientists resulted in the establishment of the V2 rocket program at White Sands Proving Ground in Southern New Mexico.

As engineering of the V2s evolved, the missiles became the foundation for a multi-stranded legacy that included the development of the intercontinental ballistic missile and the Saturn rocket delivering Americans to the moon.

While New Mexico’s  contribution to space exploration from archeoastronomy to the Spaceport is known, few know of the complex history behind the V2 rocket, and its trajectory from the rocket slave camps in Nazi Germany, to the desert of White Sands Proving Ground, and space travel today.

Want to learn more? Abq Jew is happy to inform you that there will be a large gathering of scholars and lay professionals at The Lodge in beautiful Cloudcroft this very Shabbos.

But Abq Jew is also happy to inform you that - in case you hadn't noticed - we are especially fortunate to live in a time of great technological innovation, at the very edge of the Space-Time Continuum.

In other words - you can watch Melinda Hess perform The Opening and listen to a slew of speakers deliver The Symposium on the Web by freely and, moreover, without cost registering here on Eventbrite.

Want to learn even more? Letter From Cloudcroft will soon (we hope) become a film. And you may choose to support the film project here.

As part of an intact letter collection, the unopened 1946 letter is also the basis of the documentary film and transmedia project Letter From Cloudcroft by Hess’s filmmaker daughter Melinda and partner Patricia Antelles of Convivial Studio, in New Mexico.

Tracking incidents and leads from the letters, piecing together the complexities of history, trauma, personal narratives and collective memory, the filmmaker’s journey offers a glimpse into the challenges and rewards of personal and societal reconciliation and transformation.

But right now Letter From Coudcroft has got a website and two Facebook pages - one for the film and another for the event. And New Mexico Tourism's website wrote about The Letter here.

Abq Jew apologizes for the late notice, and recognizes that many of us may already have plans for the weekend. But this is a cool event and a very interesting project. Melinda Hess explains:

This project is not just about my father and his experiences, or my family’s honoring of him.

• It is about uncovering and exposing a critical period in American history after WWII, when the actions taken by the government caused the historic transformation of American dominance in missile development and space exploration.
• It is about making transparent the complex legacy of the V2 rocket, it’s trajectory from the rocket slave camps in Nazi Germany, to the desert of White Sands Proving Ground in NM to space travel today.
• It is about honoring thousands of Holocaust victims and survivors who unknowingly contributed to the success of America being first to land on the moon.
• While this is a deeply personal story, it belongs also to national history. The questions and issues our film and symposium will raise are important to address in today’s global interconnected society.

States of Swing

Don't Be That Way: Back in the good old days, when Abq Jew was growing up (as much as he did), voting was considered a mitzvah d'Oraita - a commandment straight from the Torah.

Our Rabbis of Blessed Memory, however, were not unequivocal about the matter. And Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) points out the degree of the Rabbis' uncertainty about dealing with the government.

On one hand:

[Rabban Gamaliel the son of Rabbi Judah the Prince said:] Be careful in your relations with the government; for they draw no man close to themselves except for their own interests. They appear as friends when it is to their advantage, but they do not stand by a man in his time of need.(Pirke Avot 2:3)

But on the other hand:

Rabbi Chanina, an assistant of the High Priest said: Pray for the welfare of the government, since but for fear of it men would swallow each other alive. (Pirke Avot 3:2)

Both of these statements - both of these viewpoints - are, Abq Jew fears, true. Yet, as F. Scott Fitzgerald informs us:

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

From which we may deduce that either: a) Abq Jew's intelligence is first-rate; or b) these two ideas are not opposed; or c) Abq Jew has lost the ability to function.

And by the way - it is now considered correct to use "either" as "one of many", and not only as "one of two", although Fowler (A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Second Edition; avoid recent editions like the plague) considers this "loose".

And split infinitives? Fowler (Second Edition again) says:

The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and approve; and (5) those who know and distinguish. . . . Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are a happy folk, to be envied by the minority classes.

But back to voting. Here we are in America, the Goldene Medina, where the voices of Sarah Silverman and other prominent Jewish thinkers call out to American Jews and Jewish Americans alike to get out and vote.

Abq Jew stands with Sarah Silverman, although he tries not to stand too close. It is important for New Mexican Jews and Jewish New Mexicans to vote. In fact, New Mexico voters are so important to both presidential campaigns that both President Obama and Governor Romney have flown right over us, on their way to those undecided Swing States whose votes and voters matter to the Electoral College Bowl.

Ah, Swing States. States that Swing, States that Sing. Entire States where Swing is King. Which brings us to Benny Goodman, the King of Swing. Wikipedia tells us:

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman (May 30, 1909 – June 13, 1986) was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".

In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City is described by critic Bruce Eder as "the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz's 'coming out' party to the world of 'respectable' music."

Yes, we are approaching the 75th anniversary of that blessed event. Says Wikipedia about the recording thereof:

The Famous 1938 Carnegie Hall Jazz Concert by Benny Goodman, Columbia Records catalogue item SL-160, was first issued in 1950. It was one of the first records of Benny Goodman music issued on the new long-playing format, and one of the first to sell over a million copies. A landmark recording, it was the premiere performance given by a jazz orchestra in the famed Carnegie Hall in New York City. It is the first ever double album. This album was also sold in a set of nine 45 rpm records in the same year by Columbia.

And Fred Kaplan states in his eMusic Review:

This is the one that started it all, that pushed jazz into the concert hall (Carnegie, no less) and proved jazz could be high art and dance music, too. But its virtues aren't merely historical — this thing cooks like crazy. It's the high water mark of the swing era. From the opening number, "Don't Be That Way," when Gene Krupa takes his wowza drum break, Harry James comes roaring in with his crystal trumpet solo and the whole big band picks up its pace, you'll be sold. There's lots of pops and clicks, and they do get in the way, but the joy shines through.

We'll be hearing a lot about Swing States all day today, and maybe all night until past Count Basie's One O'Clock Jump. And then, Abq Jew fervently hopes, not for a long, long time. So sit back and enjoy!

Symphonic Grandeur!

The Figueroa Music and Arts Project: This may be the best classical music event in Albuquerque this year!

Olga Kern, Piano 

Guillermo Figueroa, Conductor

The Figueroa Music and Arts Project Symphony Orchestra 

National Hispanic Cultural Center

Friday 16 November 2012 @ 7:30 pm

Sunday 18 November 2012 @ 2:00 pm

Olga Kern is perhaps the most charismatic of contemporary pianists in the world today. She will play the universally known and admired Piano Concerto No. 1 by Tchaikovsky.

Ms Kern last dazzled an Albuquerque audience in concerts with the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra in 2010.

 "Those performances brought the most enthusiastic audience response of most any concert program over my ten years with NMSO," said Guillermo Figueroa. "Ms Kern is not only a dazzlingly powerful pianist, she is a warm and engaging person to whom people just naturally are drawn."

The November concerts will be the first of the 2012-13 Figueroa Project season to feature a full symphony orchestra.

 "Ms Kern's magnetism draws musicians into her spell much as it does concert audiences, so I anticipate this concert will be among the most memorable in recent years," said Figueroa. "She was the best-received soloist in the history of the NMSO. She appeared with me four times and was always a huge sensation."

In addition to Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, the November program includes Beethoven's Symphony No. 5 in C minor, one of the giants among Beethoven's nine symphonies.

Want to learn more about The Figueroa Music and Arts Project? Please visit the Project's website - and take a look at this interview with Guillermo Figueroa and intoduction to some of the Project's work.

Tickets:  $22, $34, $46, $60

Available from the NHCC Box Office
In Person - By Phone (505) 724-4771 - Online

For an additional $10, enjoy a post-concert reception with the artists!
Includes complimentary hors d'oeuvres and wine from Casa Rondena Winery!

With just a handful of concerts under its belt, The Figueroa Project has established itself as the most innovative concert series in town.
                              -  Albuquerque Journal music critic D.S. Crafts -

The Figueroa Project is versatile and flexible, with the ability to bring to a performance the best musicians available. The Figueroa Project will continue to present a variety of music in creative and unexpected ways by partnering with other artistic organizations in the state. Planned events will range from intimate chamber ensembles to full symphonic concerts, with a fabulous variety of local virtuoso musicians and international artists.