By Cindy Mindell

Morris Trachte

NEW HAVEN — Morris N. Trachten, a leading Connecticut Jewish philanthropist, died on May 8 at Hospice of Palm Beach County, Fla. He was 87.

Born in New Haven on June 4, 1925, Trachten was the son of the late Philip and Bessie (Katz) Trachten. He was known as a generous philanthropist in his native New Haven, throughout the state, and in Israel, especially in those areas of Jewish life that he cared most about – synagogue life, Jewish education, and the mikvah.

Accordingly, in addition to being a donor to the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, he made gifts to Jewish day schools, including Southern Connecticut Hebrew Academy in Orange, Ezra Academy and Jewish High School of Connecticut in Woodbridge (formerly in Bridgeport), Hebrew High School of New England in West Hartford, and MAKOM Jewish teen program in New Haven. He was a founder of the Westville Synagogue and a supporter of the now-defunct Jewish Home for the Aged in New Haven, and helped sustain the New Haven Mikvah Society.

He also gave to many organizations in Israel, quietly, including the ORT and AMIT schools that serve children from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, projects funded by the Jewish Agency For Israel (JAFI), and a library in Afula. His daughter, Vicki, carries on his philanthropic work, serving on the JAFI board and helping to manage Trachten’s charitable projects in Israel.

Trachten’s tzedakah comes partly from his own life experiences. As a student at UConn on the G.I. Bill in the mid-‘40s, Trachten and other students who kept kosher had no dining facilities to accommodate their dietary needs. While a Jewish student organization had been active on the Storrs campus since 1933, Trachten would graduate a year before a designated Hillel facility opened its doors, in 1949.

In 2003, the Morris N. Trachten Kosher Dining Facility opened in Gelfenbein Commons, the result of a joint fundraising effort by Trachten and UConn.

“I had spent my four years at UConn living on tuna fish and egg salad,” Trachten told the Ledger at the time. “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 Hillel 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.”

In October 2011, the refurbished Trachten-Zachs Hillel house was dedicated, newly named for Trachten and his wife Shirley and their family, and philanthropists Henry Zachs and Judith Zachs of West Hartford and their family, who made the project possible. Trachten told the Ledger 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 said. “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.”

“Morris was and will continue to be a role model for me,” says Gary Wolff, UConn Hillel executive director. “He could envision what community can be and lived and articulated that vision. Morris’s work is not about dollars and cents, but about being the tzaddik he is.”

Sydney Perry, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater New Haven, was a close personal friend of Trachten, whom she called “Maish.” She was the last person he spoke with before his death, when he asked her to come to Florida, worried that he hadn’t done enough for the New Haven Jewish community.

“As we approach Shavuot, we are reminded that the Torah is given not just once at Sinai but every day. Without exaggeration, Morris Trachten was a living Torah,” says Perry. “Maish wore the three crowns that are mentioned in Pirke Avot: the crown of Torah, for his knowledge and as much for the way he lived Torah’s values; the crown of the priesthood, as he was a kohen; the crown of royalty, in that he was a leader whom everyone respected and tried to emulate. But as Rabbi Shimon said, the crown of a good name is greater than them all. Legacy is as much about looking forward as it is about looking backward. Maish used that which he had been blessed with to the fullest, and his legacy will be in his children and grandchildren who will continue to follow in his footsteps. Maish surely propelled his family forward and our community is better and stronger for his menschlichkeit, his philanthropy, and his example.”

Morris Trachten was interred at Beth Israel Cemetery on Jewell Street in New Haven. In addition to his wife Sylvia “Shirley” (Romm) Trachten, he is survived by his children, Gary Trachten and his wife Evelyn, Vicki Schwartz and her husband Rob, Roberta Zeve, and David Trachten and his wife Stacey; his sister Gertrude Cohen of Delray Beach, Fla.; and his grandchildren Margo, Blake, and Sydney Zeve; Rebecca, Adam, and Simon Schwartz, Sofie and Josef Trachten, and Samantha, Perry, and Max Trachten.

Comments? Email cindym@jewishledger.com.