The number of ritual circumcisions performed in Alaska grew by one two weeks ago when a mohel affiliated with the Florida-based Brit Yosef Yitzchak organization traveled to the state to perform a bris for the eight-day-old grandson of transplanted Israelis living in Anchorage.
Alon Razla, a Chabad-Lubavitch businessman and mohel from Florida, performed the circumcision after all the necessary arrangements were made by Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, co-director of the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska. The infant's mother worked with Greenberg and Brit Yosef Yitzchak for her first son's bris four years ago. Today, the boy attends the Gan Yeladim Preschool in Anchorage, directed by the rabbi's wife, Esther Greenberg.
According to Yosef Greenberg, slightly more than 10 ritual circumcisions have been performed in Alaska in the past 15 years, all by volunteers working for Brit Yosef Yitzchak. The organization, which operates around the world, makes the circumcision itself free; families only have to pay the costs of transportation.
"The organization does a major mitzvah by taking off the entire price of the mohel," said Greenberg.
Brit Yosef Yitzchak was founded in 1989 by Rabbi Yaron Amit with guidance from the Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, of righteous memory. Much of its early work was done with Russian immigrants to Israel who had never had the opportunity to be circumcised. Since then, the organization's mohels have performed more than 27,000 circumcisions in more than 235 cities.
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