Martin “Marty” Hecht, a Missouri businessman and entrepreneur who was one of the unsung heroes of the exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union, passed away at age 90 on May 20 in Palm Springs, Calif. He left behind a rich legacy of Jewish philanthropy and outreach, including 10 grandchildren who serve as Chabad-Lubavitch emissaries all over the world.
Born in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, to Leibish and Henna Hecht, Marty expanded his family’s chain of retail stores into a number of Southern states. At the same time, he remained a bulwark of Judaism in his rural hometown, which lies on the Mississippi River some 120 miles south of St. Louis.
When it came time for his son Chaim (Alan) to prepare for his bar mitzvah, Rabbi Leibish Heber, a Chabad chassid, came to teach him. The connection eventually led to Chaim becoming a chassid, with the rest of the family strengthening their connections to Judaism and Torah observance as well.
When Chaim was a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in the 1970s, his father recognized that the institution on Mount Scopus should have its own synagogue. So he donated the funds and had one built himself. He also took a lead role in the acquisition of the first permanent home of Chabad of Greater St. Louis.
On Behalf of Soviet Jewry
In 1982, his younger brother, Jacob (Chic) Hecht, was elected to the U.S. Senate. Together with his son Chaim (by then a respected medical doctor in Chicago) and Rabbi Abraham Shemtov, Martin Hecht and his brother met with the Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory—at Lubavitch World Headquarters in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, N.Y.
At that time, the Rebbe spoke passionately about the plight of the Jews trapped behind the Iron Curtain of the USSR and urged the newly elected senator to make getting them out of Russia his top priority, which Hecht assured the Rebbe he would do.
In 1986, Chic Hecht supported President Reagan in a key vote and then asked for an important favor. Before the president’s historic trip to Iceland’s capital of Reykjavik to meet Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, he handed the president a list of 1,200 Jewish people who desperately wished to leave for the freedom of the West. The list had been furnished by Marty and his wife, LaVerne, who had a cousin active in efforts on behalf of Soviet Jewry.
Within weeks, a trickle of Jews began to leave Russia. That trickle eventually streamed into tens of thousands.
Years later, Marty—then retired and living in California—went to Scripps Clinic in La Jolla for help with his feet. A doctor there referred him to a specialist, who examined him and asked: “As your name is Hecht, would you know a Senator Hecht?” Marty replied yes, that he was his brother.
The doctor, suddenly emotional, told him that his wife, mother and father-in-law had been saved by their efforts. The doctor’s family members were on a list and told to be at the airport at a certain time, not knowing what to expect. They boarded a plane and took off for Vienna. With what money they had, they sent a telegram of thanks to President Reagan.
In addition to his wife and son, Hecht is survived by two daughters, Rosanne Hecht and Sherry Katzman. He is also survived by a sister, Cecile Applebaum.
Of his 18 grandchildren, 10 serve as Chabad emissaries in North America and in France. An 11th couple, Rabbi Shneur and Mushkie Hecht, plans to move to Mexico to establish a Chabad House in the vacation community of Puerto Vallarta.
Interment will take place on Tuesday, May 24, at 1 p.m. at B’nai Amoona Cemetery in St. Louis.
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