Refurbished UConn Hillel

By Cindy Mindell

When Morris Trachten returned to UConn on the G.I. Bill in 1946, there was no kosher kitchen, no Hillel house. The Jewish student organization had been active on the Storrs campus since 1933, but Trachten would graduate a year before a designated Hillel facility opened its doors, in 1949.

On Oct. 10, Trachten, now 85, and nearly 350 others celebrated the rededication of the newly refurbished Trachten-Zachs Hillel House on North Eagleville Road. The building is named for Trachten and his wife Shirley and their family, and philanthropists Henry and Judith Zachs and their family, each of whom “invested” more than $1 million, says UConn Hillel executive director Gary Wolff, who came on board in July 2009.

Henry Zachs, Philip Austin, Morris Trachten and Gary Wolff

“I don’t like to say ‘donated,’ or ‘contributed,'” he says. “Our friends have stepped up and decided to invest in our students, in their future, in the future of Hillel.” Funds raised totaled the $2 million project cost and a $1 million endowment.
The Trachten and Zachs names are already well known among UConn benefactors. The Zachs family has donated to numerous projects at UConn, its health center, the school of fine art, and the school of social work, where Judith earned her degree in 1977.
Nearly 10 years ago, Trachten was approached by Jay Rubin, then executive vice president at Hillel International. The two had become friends when Rubin served as executive director of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven in the ’90s. Rubin asked Trachten to donate $150,000, half the money needed to build a kosher kitchen on the Storrs campus. The university kicked in the other half and in 2003, the Morris N. Trachten Kosher Dining Facility opened in Gelfenbein Commons.

New Dining Hall

“I had spent my four years at UConn living on tuna fish and egg salad,” says Trachten. “Given the opportunity to help kids who want to be kosher keep kosher, I was happy to go into partnership with the university.”
One project led to the next. “While we were working on the kitchen, I came to the realization that the building was about to fall down,” Trachten says. “It was in terrible shape, and the kids weren’t using it. We didn’t have a building when we were there, and this was something I was anxious to see for the Jewish community on campus, a home away from home. Once I opened my mouth, I had to serve with a committee to see what we could do.”
The building had never been renovated in its 60-year history, says Wolff. Five years ago, flooding and mold forced university administration to close the facility and relocate staff and students to the ground floor of Souza/Lafayette, a residence hall in the Towers complex.
Hillel and UConn officials discussed plans to knock down the building.
“I believed that UConn Hillel should have a new facility, but not enough funds were raised,” says Zachs. Two years ago, the discussion shifted to renovating the existing structure. Zachs had just remodeled an office building, and decided to take on the project as general contractor. “We used the best materials – marble in the lobby, the best carpeting and tiles, everything. It came out better than I thought it would.”
“Without Henry, we wouldn’t have had a building,” says Trachten. “He personally threw his body into the project, and was there day to day supervising. He made it easy for me to be involved.” Trachten’s son David joined the building committee, along with attorney Samuel Schrager and Gary Wolff.
Not only was the building in poor shape, but its original design no longer served students’ needs, says Wolff. The 8,500-square-foot building, which opened in time to welcome the Class of 2014, was completely repurposed to provide a flexible, modern, and functional home away from home for the nearly 2,000-strong Jewish student population.
UConn Hillel was originally built as a synagogue, with small secondary areas including a foyer, library, and dining-recreation room.
“The main space was a public sanctuary with pews and an Ark, an old-school religious synagogue environment,” says Wolff. “Now it’s a community room with an opportunity to become a sanctuary when needed.” The original synagogue area, a 950-square-foot space, is set up on Shabbat and High Holidays for services, and on all other days is a coffee house and study area. The room includes a wall-size video screen – the largest on campus that isn’t in a theater facility – a small kitchen area, several dozen tables, seating for more than 200, and a baby grand piano.
The building can now accommodate three separate Friday-night services – Conservative, Reform, and Orthodox – followed by a communal Shabbat dinner. Inaccessible areas are now usable: the basement is now a large, comfortable game-room; the old choir room is a conference room overlooking the community space.
The roof, sprinkler system, and kosher kitchen are all new. The building also houses several meeting rooms, a library, and a quiet second-floor study area equipped with computers and printers.
HMZ Contractors installed new sidewalks to ensure student safety and in exchange, the university gave Hillel 1.68 acres of adjacent land. Zachs says that the organization hopes to build a dorm on the parcel, to generate funds for an endowment. The building has a new rear entrance, which the building committee envisions as a future main entrance, leading out to a terrazzo patio and space for a sukkah. The entire facility is equipped with wireless Internet access.
“I like to say that this is where Starbucks meets Barnes & Noble meets Bookworms CafÈ,” says Wolff. “We want the students to feel at home; we want to enrich the lives of Jewish undergraduates and graduates, here and around the world. Hillel is pluralistic and non-separatist. We welcome with open doors all undergraduates on campus.” The building is now fully accessible to people with disabilities.
“UConn Hillel serves our students’ religious needs, but it’s more a social and cultural institution,” Wolff says. “This is a place where students can sit and explore their own identity in a place they can call home. It covers the whole gamut of what a religious and cultural institution would. I tell Jewish parents that there is absolutely no reason they should not send your children to UConn. It’s a great university with a great Hillel, a great kosher kitchen, and a great student body.”
The rededication ceremony drew three times as many participants as had been expected, Wolff says, and included the son and daughter of the building’s original architect, Morris Savin.
“In order to grow an organization, you have to understand its history,” he says. “You stand on the shoulders of those who came before you. We must keep our founders in mind in order to positively impact future generations of students.”
Morris Trachten says that the reward for his philanthropy came from the students who attended the festivities. “At the rededication, kids walked up to me all day long and said what a difference the house has made,” he says. “Parents told me that their kids are more religiously involved now. The new building has taken care of what it was supposed to take care of. My mother, who always went store to store with a pushke to collect money for poor people, would say, ‘Whatever you give out, you get back.’ I’ve gotten back so much and I still have more to give.”
Henry Zachs is already looking ahead. “I believe in UConn and in HIllel and hope to have many more Hillel houses in Connecticut,” says the philanthropist, who funded Hillel at Trinity College in Hartford. While he won’t say yet which campus might be next up for a Hillel facility, Zachs says that he’s already helping to gather data for future projects. But he still takes a moment to admire this latest endeavor.
“I’m thrilled with how UConn Hillel turned out,” he says, “especially knowing the way it was.”