We took a few pairs of tefillin to the mountains and deserts of northern New Mexico and discovered a world we never knew existed

Text and Photos: Jonah James

While the mountains and deserts of northern New Mexico aren’t exactly the top ten places of interest for Jewish travelers, we took a few pairs of tefillin and discovered a world we never knew existed: Jews who’ve never been to synagogue but can rattle off concepts in Kabbalah, an artist whose hundreds of paintings reflect Jewish tradition on the backdrop of the desert, and testimonies from crypto-Jews whose families have been hiding in these hills for centuries

The sprawling mountains of northern New Mexico aren’t on anyone’s list as a Jewish area of interest. But for two bochurim in a Hyundai Tuscon with a cracked windshield and a couple pairs of tefillin, it not only meant a month of outreach, but some unimagined discoveries deep within New Mexico’s remote villages.

Upon arriving in the historic tourist town of Taos, New Mexico (population 6,000), we soon realized that the Jews the local Chabad shaliach, Rabbi Eli Kaminetzky, meant for us to visit could not be found by maps, but rather through satellite coordinates, as they lived in private homesteads miles from civilization and often without another house in sight. This meant that many of the local Jews we’d come to visit were quite taken by surprise, seeing us standing outside their door with Shabbos candles and tefillin.

While some of these homesteaders haven’t been to synagogue in years, living on the cliffs has made them surprisingly spiritual. Yochai (right) and I make a new friend

Hushed Up

Having parked overlooking a canyon, our gas tank on empty, we exit the car and approach the cliffside residence. Sure enough, there’s a mezuzah on the doorpost, and a few moments later, an elderly man welcomes us inside with a hearty “Shalom!” He informs us that he and his wife, who recently began a chavrusa together and started keeping Shabbos, had not been to synagogue services for years. Traditional Judaism, however, reminds him of his days teaching history in a Jewish school in New York.

He then starts explaining to us some of the most esoteric concepts in Kabbalah, using Alef-beis permutation codes and gematrios to decipher the story of Adam and Eve, which only throw me further for a loop. I have to ask my friend and partner, Yochai Liberov, if I’m on a cliff in New Mexico or in a shtibel in Tzfas (he says the distinction appears thin). After an hour-long mystical dissertation, our new acquaintance asks us if we know anything about the crypto-Jews in these parts. We reply that we don’t.

“Oh, you spend enough time in these mountains, and you’ll hear about them,” he reassures us. “Folks whose ancestors got expelled during the Spanish Inquisition. They made their way to these parts, and have been living all in quiet for centuries. Didn’t tell nobody about their history though, but they married within the tribe all right, and kept up the customs. Good luck finding them, they’re called crypto-Jews for a reason. Always were hush-hush in case of persecution.”

I wondered how a community like he described could remain afloat for so long, with so little contact with outside Jewish life and so geographically remote.