the 2010 Virtual Journal - Westchester Day School

MORTIMER J. PROPP
We pay tribute to and celebrate the life of Mortimer J.
Propp, a founder and benefactor of Westchester Day
School for sixty years. In 1947, Mr. Propp and his
beloved wife, Eugenie (z”l), along with five other
community members, purchased the twenty-six acre
property at 856 Orienta avenue for $125,000, which
became and continues to be our home. A visionary
himself, Mr. Propp sought out and hired WDS’ first
headmaster, S. Maurice Plotnick, from the Maimonides
school in Boston. Committed to the furtherance of
educating Jewish children in Westchester, Mr. Propp
served as the school’s president for its first ten years
and oversaw the initiation of Westchester Summer Day
in 1949.
Westchester Day School was only one of Mr. Propp’s abiding Jewish interests. Demonstrating
an early proclivity for acts of tzedaka and gemilut chesed, at the age of only 16 he founded
Habonim, the interscholastic league of Jewish youth, the predecessor of NCSY. As far back as
1938, his unstinting efforts to rescue the Yemenite Jews earned him special tribute by the
Yemenite Jewish federation of America in 1999. In 2002, UJS-Federation honored him as the
last living founder of the united Jewish appeal. For more than twenty years, Mr. Propp served
as a senior officer on the advisory council of the New York Board of Rabbis.
A graduate of Columbia College and a recipient of a master’s degree from Columbia University’s
Graduate School of Business, Mr. Propp married Eugenie Alter, (z”l) an émigré from Vienna, in
1942. He served in the Signal Corps during World War II. After the war, he joined his family’s
real estate business in New York with brothers Seymour, (z”l)and Ephraim. He was the proud
father of Helen (and Melvin) Heller and Morris (and Marni) and loving grandfather of Jack and
Adrienne.
Westchester Day School is the beneficiary of Mr. Propp’s lifetime of sage advice and counsel,
generous financial contributions and love.
CAREN HAMMERMAN
PRESIDENT, 1997-2000
CHAIR, BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 2000-2004