last word
Dr. George Trajtenberg
Sasha Rogelberg | Staff Writer
D r. George Trajtenberg has
already made his mark as a
surgeon in Philadelphia. The
West Chester resident founded the
Chester County Surgical Associate
in 1982 and worked with Surgical
Specialists, P.C. in Chester County
until 2013 when he retired from active
private practice.

After more than 30 years in the
practice, Trajtenberg, 70, still hasn’t
hung up his scrubs. For the past 12
years, he and a team of 20-30 surgeons
he assembled have traveled to clinics in
La Entrada and Comayagua, Honduras
a couple of times a year, providing
necessary operations to the patients
there, sometimes 80-120 in a week.

The Kesher Israel Congregation
member was doing similar missions
outside of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, but
stopped due to the ongoing social and
political crises in the country, which has all
but eliminated travel there from the U.S.

Trajtenberg’s patients are poor
and come to the clinic via horse, bus
or even by foot. In between trips,
Trajtenberg works with surgeons and
hospitals as part of Project C.U.R.E
to collect surgical supplies, many of
which are surplus or would have other-
wise been treated as disposable. The
clinics with which Trajtenberg works
often only supply an operating room or
two in the back of the buildings.

An immigrant to the U.S. from
Argentina, Trajtenberg sees this work
as a way of giving back to the world
that has given him and his family good
fortune. “If blessings are money,” Trajtenberg
said, “then I’m the richest man in the
world.” “You have to give back,” he contin-
ued. “You can’t just take, take, take.”
Arriving in Philadelphia in 1974,
Trajtenberg was 22 and his wife
28 JANUARY 12, 2023 | JEWISH EXPONENT
Adriana 19. Though already a graduate
of medical school, Trajtenberg was
too young to begin a surgical practice
in earnest and instead interned at
Einstein Health and joined a residency
program at the Medical College of
Pennsylvania. He moved to West
Chester in 1982, the same year he
began his practice.

“I did everything I could do to be a
good citizen,” he said.

The sentiment extended to his Jewish
life. Trajtenberg, who did not have a
bar mitzvah ceremony in Argentina,
joined KI’s adult bar mitzvah program
at age 30. He joined B’nai Brith and
BBYO, and his grandchildren attend
Perelman Jewish Day School and Jack
M. Barrack Hebrew Academy.

Trajtenberg describes his arrival to
the U.S. as similar to the 1939 “The
Wizard of Oz” film: In Argentina, things
were black and white; upon coming to
America, everything turned to color.

Growing up in Paraná, despite
Argentina being the fifth-most-pop-
ulous country of Jews at the time,
Trajtenberg encountered antisemitism
and political unrest.

His relatives came to Argentina from
all over Eastern Europe — what is now
Russia, Ukraine and Romania — in the
late 1800s. Paraná had two synagogues,
one Ashkenazi and one Sephardic, and
though Trajtenberg’s father was secular,
Trajtenberg and his two brothers grew
up celebrating Jewish holidays and
filled with deep Zionism, in large
part because of the strong shaliach
program his synagogue had.

During Argentina’s Dirty War in
the 1970s, Trajtenberg remembered
gunshots and fires in the streets.

Antisemitism in the Catholic country
under heavy policing was partic-
ularly prominent then, and both of
Trajtenberg’s brother’s made aliyah.

Trajtenberg was taunted by compa-
triots about the conspiracy that Jews
killed Jesus and his so-called dual
loyalty — on what side would he fight,
should Argentina and Israel go to war?
The teenager just continued to study
medicine. Though Trajtenberg’s missions to
Honduras are a way for him to person-
ally give back to the medical commu-
nity, he also sees the trips as a chance
to open the minds of the younger
surgeons he brings along, which has
dwindled in numbers over the years.

Trajtenberg often thinks of a Mark
Twain quote: “Travel is fatal to preju-
dice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.”
A lover of travel, Trajtenberg has
visited 65 countries and five conti-
nents. His wife is an interpreter of
Spanish and English.

Beyond helping his fellow surgeons
learn Spanish, Trajtenberg helps
organize the missions to open others
up to new experiences and people
they wouldn’t have otherwise encoun-
tered in their bubble.

“The more you travel, the more
you intermingle with different people,
different nations, different languages,
different colors, whatever,” he said.

“You become more human. And that’s
good for all of us.” ■
srogelberg@midatlanticmedia.com Courtesy of George Trajtenberg
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