Is there a synagogue in Anchorage, Alaska?

Yes. Congregation Beth Sholom is Anchorage's Reform synagogue, founded in 1958 and affiliated with the Reform movement in 1960. It is Alaska's largest Jewish organization and serves the greater Anchorage area.

Is there a Chabad in Alaska?

Yes. The Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska has served Anchorage since 1991 under Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, and its campus includes the state's only mikveh and the Alaska Jewish Museum.

Is there a synagogue in Fairbanks, Alaska?

Yes. Congregation Or HaTzafon is a Reform congregation of about 50 families in Fairbanks, believed to be the northernmost synagogue in the world.

Is there a Jewish community in Juneau, Alaska?

Yes. Congregation Sukkat Shalom, affiliated with the Reform movement, is the only synagogue in Southeast Alaska, serving more than 35 families in Juneau.

Jewish Communities in Alaska: Anchorage to Juneau

Q: How many Jews live in Alaska?

Alaska's Jewish population is estimated at roughly 6,000 to 6,175 people statewide, with about 80 percent living in the Anchorage area.

Quick answer: Alaska’s Jewish community, an estimated 6,000-plus people statewide, is centered in Anchorage, home to about 80 percent of Alaska’s Jews. Anchorage has a Reform congregation, Congregation Beth Sholom, and a Chabad center; Fairbanks and Juneau each have their own small Reform congregations further afield.

How Many Jews Live in Alaska?

Alaska’s Jewish population is estimated at around 6,000 to 6,175 people statewide, a small community spread across a genuinely enormous territory. Roughly 80 percent live in Anchorage, with the rest concentrated in Fairbanks, Juneau, and a scattering of smaller towns like Sitka and Ketchikan. It’s a community shaped by distance as much as denomination — getting from one Jewish community to the next can mean a multi-hour flight, not a drive across town.

Anchorage: Congregation Beth Sholom and Chabad

Anchorage’s main synagogue, Congregation Beth Sholom, traces back to September 1958, when twenty people gathered in a private home to welcome Shabbat and organize a congregation. It formally affiliated with the Reform movement in 1960 and moved into its current five-acre wooded campus on East Northern Lights Boulevard in 1988. As the largest Jewish organization in the state, Beth Sholom serves families from Girdwood to the Mat-Su Valley, including Palmer and Wasilla, well beyond Anchorage’s city limits — the congregation’s own website address, frozenchosen.org, borrows the community’s affectionate self-given nickname, “the Frozen Chosen.” Alongside it, the Lubavitch Jewish Center of Alaska has operated since 1991 under Rabbi Yosef Greenberg, running a preschool, hosting the Alaska Jewish Museum, and housing the state’s only mikveh — built after the previous one at Elmendorf Air Force Base was demolished in 1999. Between them, the two institutions cover the full range of Jewish practice and observance available in the state, from Reform worship to Chabad-run Torah classes and holiday programming.

Fairbanks: The Northernmost Synagogue in the World

Congregation Or HaTzafon (“Light of the North”) in Fairbanks holds a genuine distinction: it’s believed to be the northernmost synagogue on Earth. A Reform congregation of about 50 member families, Or HaTzafon meets in a converted 1970s duplex it purchased in 1992, gathering for Friday evening services and occasional Saturday morning study. The congregation has held the Interior’s Jewish community together for more than 30 years, a remarkable run for a group this size in a city known for its brutal winters and isolation.

Juneau: Congregation Sukkat Shalom

In Southeast Alaska, Congregation Sukkat Shalom (“Shelter of Peace”) in Juneau is the only synagogue for hundreds of miles. What began as the informal “Juneau Jewish Community,” meeting in homes and borrowed church space for years, formally affiliated with the Reform movement in 1997 and eventually dedicated its own permanent building — a milestone marked by the local community after decades without a synagogue of its own. Sukkat Shalom now serves more than 35 families and runs almost entirely on volunteer leadership — most services and holiday programs are led by community members rather than clergy, though a student rabbi visits monthly to lead services and teach.

The Alaska Jewish Museum and Practical Realities

One distinctive feature of Alaska’s Jewish infrastructure is the Alaska Jewish Museum, housed on the Lubavitch Jewish Center’s Anchorage campus, which documents the ways Jewish individuals have shaped Alaska’s history and explores Jewish culture and the Holocaust for visitors and residents alike. Because Alaska’s Jewish population is so spread out, kosher food, ritual items, and even a minyan can take real planning to arrange outside Anchorage — Fairbanks and Juneau’s small congregations rely heavily on member volunteers and the occasional traveling rabbi to fill the gaps that a bigger community would cover with full-time staff.

What Jewish Life in Alaska Actually Feels Like

Jewish life in Alaska is defined by distance and self-reliance. With no single institution able to serve the whole state, each community — Anchorage, Fairbanks, Juneau — has built its own small but resilient infrastructure, largely lay-led outside Anchorage’s two established institutions. It’s a community where a 50-family congregation can genuinely be the center of Jewish life for an entire region, and where showing up to lead a service yourself is simply how things get done.

Finding Your Place in Alaska’s Jewish Community

If you’re relocating to Anchorage, Fairbanks, or Juneau, HeimishMart’s Community Explorer is a useful way to see where Jewish community life is concentrated, and the Jewish Events calendar tracks Shabbat services and holiday gatherings at Beth Sholom, Chabad, Or HaTzafon, and Sukkat Shalom. House hunters can browse Real Estate listings near any of these congregations, or check Rentals if you’re not buying right away. Alaska’s job market draws relocators year-round, and the Jobs board can help line up work before a move this significant. Given how spread out and lay-led Alaska’s Jewish communities are, Chessed, HeimishMart’s mutual-aid network, can be an especially valuable resource. And if you have a business, service, or spare room near Anchorage, Fairbanks, or Juneau’s Jewish communities, consider a free listing to help others find you.

By the HeimishMart Community Desk — HeimishMart is the community marketplace for Jewish homes, jobs, and local life across North America.