1st Gan Israel Opens on Top of Alaska’s Glaciers

The first Camp Gan Israel in the world this summer season has opened up on top of Alaska’s glaciers under the leadership of the Rebbe’s Shluchim in Alaska, Rabbi Yosef and Esther Greenberg.

Due to Alaska’s short summer season, summer vacation begins as early as mid-May, which enables Alaska’s Jewish children to receive a dose of Jewish education in a fun environment earlier than the rest of the world.

Thanks to the outstanding dedication and hard work of counselors M. Goldin, S. Greenberg, C. Weinman, C. Niasoff, M. Gold and H. Yarmak, this year’s Camp Gan Izzy has been a great success and left a tremendous impression on the students and their families.

During camp, a bat-mitzvah took place in the Lubavitch Center in Alaska for camper Arielle Himelbloom, who flew with her family all the way from the remote island of Kodiak, Alaska to attend Camp Gan Izzy for the third year in a row.

At last year’s camp, Arielle befriended young shlucha Rivkie Greenberg, who offered to teach Arielle Hebrew lessons online during the year and prepare her for the bat-mitzvah. Arielle’s bat-mitzvah celebration was attended by her grandmother, a holocaust survivor who left Germany on the Kindertransport right before the war began.

For the Himelbloom family, things had come full circle from the days when the grandmother’s orthodox Jewish education abruptly ended before the war, to the granddaughter’s coming back to celebrating the family’s Jewish roots in Chabad of Alaska.