The Frozen Chosen – Part 2

Jun 24, 2009

We continue a look at some of the unique people who make up the Jewish population in Alaska:

Chaim Cohen is a tall, burly man wearing a neon-orange safety vest and a cap with a construction company logo. He walked into Beth Sholom one day last July and asked to buy a tzedaka box. Cohen, 40, who claims to be the only Jewish pile driver in Alaska, had just bought a house near the synagogue and needed the box so his children could keep the congregation’s tradition of weekly donations at home. Cohen had come to Alaska from Los Angeles the year before in search of a job. An Orthodox Jew, he refuses to work on the Sabbath, but his unusual background more than makes up for what employers might have considered a limitation: He had lived in Israel and had served in the Israel Defense Forces for nine years, running fuel and supplies throughout South Lebanon

Bob Loeffler, 53, a consultant in land-use planning and natural resources, was in the synagogue the day Cohen came in, having arrived by bicycle from his home eight miles away. Loeffler grew up in California and came to Alaska as a college graduate looking for adventure, especially outdoor sports. Thirty years later, his enthusiasm has not waned.In his job with the Department of Natural Resources, which manages Alaska’s 100-million acres of state land, he created the first land-use plan for Prince William Sound, home to spectacular glaciers and a stunning array of wildlife.

Joel Zipkin and his wife, Barbara, knew nothing of Alaska before arriving from San Francisco in 1974. Fresh out of law school and frustrated by the dearth of jobs in his hometown, Zipkin accepted an offer from an Anchorage law firm, thinking he would try Alaska for a year. Today, he is a senior partner at the same firm. Among the things that kept him in Anchorage were the close friendships he made through Beth Sholom. “We are so distant and in some ways still so isolated and forgotten that living here binds us”, said Zipkin, who has twice served as congregation president. “Friends became as close as immediate family”, he added.

The Lubavitch Jewish Center which houses Shomrei Ohr and its educational facilities, a Chabad House and Judaica shop—also offers a sense of family to an eclectic group; some 40 of whom dine with the rabbi and his family on Friday nights. One regular is Jerry Green, 74, son of legendary Anchorage furrier David Green. Jerry Green and his brother, Perry, are among the few Jews in the community who grew up in Alaska. Together they run the family business; their factory and fur shops line 4th Avenue downtown and attract both tourists and locals. A fourth generation of Greens is already growing up in the city. But Jerry Green never wanted to be a furrier, and in 1965 he left. Green wanted to become a doctor, but did not have the grades. He returned and channeled his passion for learning into collecting books, which line the walls of his study at the factory, and into his devotion to Greenberg;

Alaska has been good for the Jews; with a presence since at least since 1867, when they were active in the fur trade. Jewish merchants in San Francisco who imported furs from Alaska influenced the United States purchase of the territory that year. More Jews came later in the century with waves of prospectors responding to the lure of gold, and especially during the great Klondike Gold Rush of 1898. In 1908, Congregation Bikkur Cholim was formed in Fairbanks, but the Jews and their congregations tended to come and go. The town of Anchorage started out in 1915 as the site of the headquarters of the Alaska Railroad. Leopold David, a Jew, was its first elected mayor when it was incorporated in 1920.

One of the congregation’s three Torahs is a treasure from Alaska’s gold rush, brought from Lithuania to Nome in 1900.