The death here of Mrs. Lena Ferguson, a Jewish woman married to a non-Jew, led to the discovery by Jack Frankel, Jewish Welfare Board worker in Alaska, of an old and long unused Jewish cemetery plot in Fairbanks. Believed to be the only Jewish burial ground in Alaska, the plot became the last resting place of Mrs. Ferguson, whose Jewishness came to light after her brother, J. Wishengrad, of Catskill, N. Y., wired a local funeral chapel requesting that his sister be buried in accordance with Jewish law.
Since the only rabbi in Alaska, Chaplain Jacob Rubenstein, was away on visits to Jewish GIs stationed at remote installations, Mr. Frankel and Robert Bloom, an old-time Jewish settler here, officiated at Mrs. Ferguson’s funeral. The cemetery plot had not been used for more than 25 years, because the remains of other deceased Jews in Alaska are customarily sent to the States “for burial. Prior to Mrs. Ferguson’s interment, the plot held five bodies.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
