Kesher Talk

Jewish life in Alaska: The AP documents some of the travails of leading an observant Jewish life in the frozen North: You can't get kosher food. As a result, you can only go out to eat when you're on vacation. And a lot of your vacation time is spent collecting kosher food to take home. For circumcisions, you have to import a mohel from Israel.

Rabbi Yossi Greenberg, head of the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska, estimates there are more than 5,000 Jews of various stripes among the state's population of about 627,000. About 1,000 people attended a Hanukkah service last year. Greenberg estimates 20 to 30 families follow the strict dietary laws.

"Orthodox families get together in an informal cooperative to pool orders and exchange information about kosher food products that turn up in the city. Anything not available in Anchorage must be ordered and flown in by air freight. If air service ended tomorrow, the Orthodox community would not starve. Fresh produce is kosher. Alaska's fresh salmon and halibut are kosher, as long as they're not processed with shrimp or crab. And most families accept that they have to make their own bread because there are no kosher bakeries. But they're happy when the occasional kosher pizza shows up in a freezer section. "It's a big thing for us," Greenberg said. "Frozen pizza is better than no pizza." "

posted by Howard @ 4/06/2002 10:18:54 AM