(Jewish Group) A tiny New Mexico Jewish community trying to buy back its historic synagogue building

[Behind the Aegis]

For the first time in more than 60 years, New Mexico’s oldest synagogue may be returning to Jewish ownership. (Photo courtesy of Jim Terr / Design by Jackie Hajdenberg)

Neal Behrendt’s bar mitzvah was the first Jewish coming-of-age ceremony celebrated inside Temple Montefiore in Las Vegas, New Mexico, in more than 75 years.

That’s in part because the local Jewish community is tiny — Neal’s mother, Nancy Terr, recalls that when her family moved there in 1958, locals joked that they doubled Las Vegas’ Jewish population.

But it’s also because Temple Montefiore’s building has been a church since the 1950s.

Now, Terr and others in Las Vegas, New Mexico, a city of about 13,000 roughly an hour’s drive from Santa Fe, want to buy back Temple Montefiore, the first synagogue in the New Mexico Territory. They have launched a crowdfunding campaign to do just that, setting a goal of raising $200,000 by the end of September.

Already, they’ve raised nearly half of the goal, bringing in hundreds of donations from all over the United States and beyond after their plea spread on social media this week.

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