I TRAVEL I Alaska Preserves Its Jewish Roots JUDITH SELLNER Special to The Jewish News A nicolettilll©1111© LEATHER 50 % OFF IN STOCKoczSPECIAL ORDER ANY STYLE 75 COLORS TO CHOOSE FROM Tel-Twelve Mall 12 Mile & Telegraph - Southfield Daily 10-9 • Sunday 12-5 Immediate delivery in-stock 4: merchandise ITALIAN CUSTOM CABINETRY Right in Your Own Driveway! 4 / THE TUNE -UP I MAN Certified by the National Automotive Institute of Excellence Comes to your home or office with the garage-on-wheels Valet service that doesn't cost one penny extra COMMERCIAL & RESIDENTIAL kitchens • bathrooms • bedrooms furniture — wall units • tables 581-4790 626-8587 Sal Cristarella 44 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1988 • Expert diagnostic tune-up • Electronic analyzer - all engine systems • Professionally trained mechanics • Perfect results assured Expanded Services Call Sanford Rosenberg for your car problems os4'1398-3605 laska is vast. With an area equal to 20 per- cent of the lower 48, or "the outside," it is the largest of the 50 states. It has more coastline than the lower 48 combined, more wilder- ness, and the highest moun- tain in North America. The most sparsely populated state, Alaska has more caribou than people. Of the 500,000 Alaskans, about 1,000 are Jewish. Though few in number, Jews have played an impor- tant role in Alaska's history since sailing with Vitus Ber- ing's 1741 expedition to chart Alaska's waters. By mid-19th century, in Russian America, German Jews from San Fran- cisco had developed fur trading and a steamboat ship- ping line. Benjamin Levi lowered the Russian flag and raised the first American flag on October 9, 1867, in Sitka, then the territorial capital. The next spring fourteen Jewish settlers gathered there for a Passover seder with matzah shipped from San Francisco. Traveling in Alaska is a serendipitous discovery of historic facts and places of Jewish interest. For instance, if you cruise the island-dotted Inside Passage and stop at volcano-guarded Sitka, in the Isabel Miller Museum at Centennial Hall, you will see pictorial displays that feature two of the city's prominent early Jewish families, the Cohens and the Witzes. Every evening at 9 p.m., you will hear The Bell of University Prayer. This gift of Dr. Isaac Knoll, a Polish-born Jew who settled in Sitka in 1947, hangs in the Loyal Order of the Moose Building. In Juneau, Alaska's scenic capital, the memorabilia cor- ner at the Chinook Brewery displays a yellowing newspaper ad for "Juneau Brewery, the only first-class brewery in Alaska — M.J. Cohen, Proprietor." Following in the footsteps of his father, who established Alaska's first brewery in Sitka, Cohen own- ed the Juneau brewery from 1907 to 1910. In 1885, Robert Goldstein set up a general store on Juneu's waterfront. Eight of his children were born in Juneau. Isadore served six terms as the city's mayor, and Charles, the eldest, built the Goldstein Building, where he opened Goldstein's Emporium in 1914. Still standing at Se- cond and Seward Streets in downtown Juneau, the five- story concrete building serv- ed as a temporary Capitol for the Territory of Alaska. The federal government rented space for legislative sessions in 1915 and 1917 and for the Executive Offices from 1925 until the present State Capitol was built in 1931. A plaque in the lobby pays tribue to Charles Goldstein. A state hero, Alaska's ter- ritorial governor from 1939 to 1953 and later U.S. Senator, Ernest Greuning is memorialized by Greuning Park on Glacier Highway bet- ween downtown and Juneau's major attraction, the Mendenhall Glacier. A small, but active Juneau Jewish Community holds Sabbath services every third Friday evening. They usually meet at members' homes with a lay leader conducting services. High Holy Day ser- vices, with a rabbi from out- side, and a community seder at Passover take place in rented space. Further up the Inside Passage, the town of Haines developed around Sol Ripin- sky's trading post. At various times a teacher, postmaster, notary, and lawyer, he is remembered in the town's new Sheldon Museum. His study, a photograph of his store, and a copy of the resolu- tion he introduced asking Congress to enact legislation for territorial governmnet for Alaska have been preserved there. Mount Ripinski, nam- ed for him, hovers 3,600 feet above the town. Other "Jewish mountains" in Alaska are 11,500-foot Mount Einstein at the head of Yale Glacier, 32 miles nor- thwest of Valdez; and Mount Neuberger, a 6,700-foot peak in the Alaska Range, honor- ing Senator Richard Neuberger of Oregon, who supported Alaska's statehood. A glacier, a river, a bay, and the village of Gerstle Point are named for Richard Gers- tle, one of the Jewish mer- chants who founded the Alaska commercial Company. He is credited with igniting the Klondike Gold Rush when his steamer docked in- San Francisco carrying $750,000 in gold, which con- firmed letters sent from Skagway and the Yukon about the boom. The northern terminus of the Inside Passage, Skagway was the gateway to the Klon- 4 a I ••1 41 1 (0-1 ■ IP m•-•