Out of the 5,000 Chabad-Lubavitch emissary couples already serving throughout the world, Rabbi Heshy and Chani Wolf have assumed the title of the northernmost emissaries: Last month they officially established the new Chabad center in Fairbanks, Alaska.
The new Chabad center in Fairbanks follows in the wake of the state’s long-standing, successful Chabad centers in Anchorage and the Mat-Su valley, under the leadership of the regional directors, Rabbi Yosef and Esty Greenberg. In 1991, the Greenbergs were blessed by the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—to establish Chabad in Alaska with the mission, in the Rebbe’s words, to “warm up Alaska!”
It was the discovery of gold that first made the central Alaskan area now known as Fairbanks a destination for explorers and settlers. Now the second-largest city in Alaska, with 30,000 residents and another 70,000 residents in the surrounding suburbs, Fairbanks is home to one of the leading arctic research centers in the form of the University of Alaska Fairbanks and has a significant military presence with Fort Wainwright.
Fairbanks also sees its fair share of tourists. Visitors flock to the “Golden Heart City” on their way to Denali State Park, including Denali (formerly known as Mount McKinley), the tallest mountain in North America. Its geography and hours of darkness during the winter lend a long season of Northern Lights viewing, making it one of the best locations in the world to see the dazzling display.
But for all its beauty, Fairbanks is a difficult place to live. The winters are long and brutal, with snow lasting from October to April, and on many days temperatures can drop to 40 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.
Fairbanks’ northern location means that at some points in the summer, it can have 24 hours of sunlight. In the winter, however, the sun is up for less than four hours per day.
Enlisting to Be ‘Everything People’
How did a young rabbi born in Los Angeles and his wife, who hails from Sydney, Australia, decide to pick up, together with their 1-year-old daughter, and move to Alaska?
Rabbi Wolf says he always knew he had a penchant for outreach off the beaten track. During his time in yeshivah and rabbinical school, he visited places like Argentina, Ukraine, Cuba and New Zealand to assist the Jewish communities there, exploring the areas for isolated Jews. His wife, Chani, spent time in Israel working at a school for Jewish women who were looking to grow in their religiosity. But permanently moving to Fairbanks was still a stretch.
Before the summer of 2023, the rabbi saw a message stating that Chabad of Alaska was looking to expand and looking for an interested couple. Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, regional director of Chabad of Alaska, was part of a committee of Chabad rabbis who had undertaken to establish 1,200 new Chabad houses and institutions around the world in honor of the 120th anniversary of the birth of the Rebbe.
Having worked with the Jewish community in Fairbanks since his arrival in Alaska in 1991, he felt that Fairbanks was ready for a permanent Chabad presence and was interviewing young couples who showed interest in moving to Fairbanks. The right couple, however, had still not been found.
After initial feelings of doubt, the Wolfs decided to visit in the summer to get a feel for the area. There, they met Jews and experienced the community and lifestyle. Once they saw the need and potential for Jewish life in Fairbanks, they became convinced.
But Alaska in the summer is not the same as Alaska in the winter, and Greenberg insisted that they visit once again in the heart of winter before making their final decision. During that visit, temperatures plunged 41 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, and the Wolfs remained undeterred. Greenberg was now satisfied that they had what it takes to make northern Alaska home.
The new emissaries know that they are expected to be the “everything people,” as Rabbi Wolf puts it, for Judaism in Fairbanks.
“This means everything from Shabbat services to kosher food, chevra kadisha, mohel to anything else a Jew needs throughout their life,” Wolf said. “The Jewish buck stops with us.”
The Wolfs have four main areas of focus for Chabad of Fairbanks: the local resident Jewish population, tourists, university students, and military personnel stationed in Fairbanks.
‘Until Now, We Were Alone’
Gershom Aviel Chavez was stationed in Fairbanks a number of years ago. A major in the U.S. military, he lived alongside some 6,500 other soldiers at Fort Wainwright in Fairbanks—the most northern major military facility in the Western Hemisphere. His primary concern was how he would sustain a Jewish lifestyle while stationed in one of the isolated places from central Jewish life in the world.
“Jewish life was pretty bare-knuckle,” Chavez said. “We would have the occasional Chabad young rabbi who would travel up to us every year temporarily, to help us celebrate Jewish holidays, as well as visit us in the summer, but other than that we were pretty much self-sustained.”
In the absence of any official Jewish communal presence, Chavez assumed the role of DRGL, distinctive religious group leader, for the handful of Jews on base. He tended to the basic needs of the Jewish community there, whether that meant providing resources for those spending Shabbat on base or arranging spaces where the soldiers could pray, but for the most part, the quality of Jewish life for the Jewish soldiers and their families was static.
The extreme environmental conditions of Fairbanks often has adverse effects on the military personnel stationed in Fairbanks, leading to a proliferation of mental-health challenges, including a high suicide rate.
“Until now, we were alone and had to deal with all our needs by ourselves without a proper community,” Chavez said. “I’m so excited for Rabbi Wolf to come and build our community. There is so much work to be done, but I know that he’s up for the challenge.”
Since the Wolfs have begun scouting Fairbanks in preparation of their move, they have already seen a shift in Fairbanks Jewish structure and have uncovered new revelations about Fairbanks’ Jewish composition.
“We always thought there were about 100 Jewish families in Fairbanks,” Chavez told Chabad.org. “When Rabbi Wolf started coming, we did some digging, and it turns out that the number is closer to something like 1,500 Jews. So the true number is 10 times what we had previously thought.”
‘A Special Emphasis’
While the Wolfs were planning their move up north for the better part of the past year, Chabad of Fairbanks has already seen accelerated and exceptional growth.
When Greenberg began planning to establish a permanent Chabad center in Fairbanks, he reached out to one of his dear friends and supporters, Jay Ramras, long known as a pillar of the Fairbanks Jewish community. A successful businessman who owns a number of hotels in the area, he is a former member of the Alaska House of Representatives.
Ramras has been involved in Chabad nearly his entire life, beginning with the first young traveling Chabad rabbis sent to Fairbanks by the Rebbe back in the summer of 1970. In fact, his bar mitzvah took place at Chabad of Seattle with Rabbi Sholom Ber Levitin and Rabbi Yechezkel Kornfeld, as Levitin had been working with the Jewish community in Fairbanks for years before the Greenbergs moved to Alaska.
In the last three decades, Ramras has periodically visited Chabad of Anchorage and was impressed with the work being done both there and in his hometown. Throughout the years, whenever young Chabad visiting rabbis were sent to Fairbanks, Ramras would host them in his Pike’s Waterfront Lodge and take an active interest in their work with the community.
For several years, he was keen on having a permanent Chabad center in the city and was excited to hear that a potential couple was coming to visit Fairbanks. He hosted them in his hotel and began courting them to assume the position in Fairbanks.
During the Wolfs’ visits to Fairbanks, he began collaborating with them to see how they could assist each other in growing and enhancing Jewish life in Fairbanks. A few months ago, Ramras shared his intention to buy the new Chabad a home.
“Jay found a beautiful building on an acre of land in a central location,” Wolf said. “This literally propels us forward years ahead.”
“Alaska was a place that the Rebbe put a specific emphasis on,” said Greenberg. “The new Chabad of Fairbanks is a testimony that the Rebbe's vision is going strong and continues to shape Jewish life around the world, and the persistent need for the expansion of Chabad centers to assist in the needs of Jewish community, whether in Alaska or anywhere else.”
“In the tenth blessing of the Amidah, one of the things it says is that when Moshiach comes, the shofar will blow, and Jews will gather from all four corners of the earth,” added Chavez. “One of the prerequisites is that you have to actually be in all four corners. There’s one corner of the earth where there are Jews but no center for us to gather in.
“Well, congratulations, we just brought it!”
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