Couple starts new Mat-Su Jewish center

WASILLA — It’s been years since the Valley has had a gathering place like the Mat-Su Jewish Center.

The center currently operates out of the new home of Rabbi Mendy Greenberg, his wife Chaya and their 10-month-old daughter. The Greenbergs recently moved to Alaska from Brooklyn, New York, but Rabbi Mendy has long had ties to Alaska. He grew up in Anchorage, attending the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska with his parents, Rabbi Yosef and Esther Greenberg, who founded the center in 1991. It was the only synagogue and holiday meeting place for Chabad-Lubavitch Jews in Southcentral Alaska for 10 years.

In 2001, Rabbi Abraham Garmaize started Temple Knesset Israel in the Valley, but he only intended to stay for a few years, according to an account in the Frontiersman at the time. Rabbi Garmaize was 70 years old then, and retired in the early 2000s, the Greenbergs said.

After that, many Jews living in Mat-Su returned to commuting to Anchorage to worship and gather during the “high holidays” such as Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Rabbi Yosef knew there were enough Jews traveling from the Valley to support a local center, so when Rabbi Mendy came home for a visit, it was decided that he and his family would make the move north to provide for the Mat-Su community.

When they planned an informal meet-and-greet for Valley Jews this summer, the family expected to see four or five people in attendance. Around 20 people showed up, Chaya said.

“People really started to come out of the woodwork,” she said.

The Greenbergs could see that the Mat-Su Jewish community had “such a desire and intent” to grow and understand their faith, and the couple was “really inspired by that,” Chaya said.

“A big deal”

Alaskan ventriloquist and entertainer Hillary Saffran is one Valley resident who has been a part of the Anchorage congregation for some time — she’s known the Greenbergs since Rabbi Mendy was a toddler — and spoke to the significance of having a local Jewish center.

“It’s a big deal for the few of us that are out here,” Saffran said.

Saffran grew up in New York, then lived in Anchorage for many years before moving to the Mat-Su five years ago. In New York, she said, she could find a Jewish place of worship on just about every corner. Although she estimated there were just 2,500 Jews in Alaska when Rabbi Yosef started his Anchorage congregation, the numbers have surely grown since then, making the Mat-Su center an important asset to the local Jewish community.

In the past, Jewish families from the Mat-Su have met in each other’s homes for holidays and other religious meetings, she said. But a young, knowledgeable and good-humored rabbi with a strong sense of tradition like Mendy is “a wonderful addition” to the local Jewish community, she said — someone who can bring Valley Jews together in a more structured way.

“He’s not just another guy,” Saffran said. “He’s had years of training already.”

Mudbusters Carwash owner Karen Mahoy, who has also known the Greenbergs from the beginning, said she’s excited for the innovative approach Rabbi Mendy will surely take to the longstanding Jewish traditions taught by his father. His experience of Jewish culture in Alaska, New York and Israel will also be a benefit, Mahoy said, especially in connecting with Valley residents.

“People in Alaska just have a different attitude than the rest of the country does in general,” she said.

Mahoy and Saffran both expressed their intentions to continue traveling to Anchorage for regular services, in addition to attending the Mat-Su center, but some Valley Jews have not had much of an opportunity for that before.

“It will give the people who are Jewish that really haven’t been able to practice an opportunity to have a community, finally,” Mahoy said. “People don’t have to be isolated.”

And they shouldn’t be nervous, either, she said, though people often are about joining a new group.

The mission

According to the Mat-Su Jewish Center mission statement, the goal is “to build and sustain a place where every Jew is welcomed,” which the Greenbergs reiterated in a Wednesday interview.

“Religion isn’t something that’s supposed to be constrained,” Chaya said. “It should be accessible to everyone at their level.”

Rabbi Mendy agreed.

“Everyone should be in touch with their own spirituality in a way that makes them feel happy and fulfilled,” he said. “We want people’s Judaism to mean something to them in a positive way.”

But “appreciating a moral life” and one of “continuous education” (as is fitting with the Chabad-Lubavitch philosophy involving “wisdom,” “comprehension” and “knowledge,” according to chabad.org) is “not something that’s just for Jews,” Chaya said.

“You don’t need religion to be kind,” for example, she said.

And doing kind acts, Rabbi Mendy said — whether that means feeding the hungry or keeping a “charity box” of loose change for a given cause — is one of the most important choices anyone can make, especially in the Jewish faith.

“Learning and preaching it doesn’t help very much if you don't act on it,” he said.

The Greenbergs hope people who attend the Mat-Su Jewish Center will “not just live, but thrive” in a life that is “not just purposeful, but meaningful,” Chaya said.

Valley Jewish residents can join Rabbi Mendy and Chaya Greenberg at their home at 2301 Lynx Circle in Wasilla for a celebration of Rosh Hashanah on Monday, Sept. 14 at 6 p.m.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.

CORRECTION: This story has been modified from its original version to correct an error. The Rabbi Yosef Greenberg's Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska was not the only synagogue in Southcentral in the 1990s, but was preceded by Congregation Beth Sholom, a Reform Jewish synagogue that is still in existence in Anchorage today.