Burton Ira Weiss was a lifelong “battler” powerfully committed to the Jewish tradition of peace and equality. He was born in New York City, where his parents owned a hotel, and studied at Cornell University. Following his graduation he returned to the city where he met and became a protégé of Paul Goodman, the Jewish nonviolent gay anarchist intellectual of the 1960s.
In turn, Burton also became close to Percival, Paul’s brother, and his wife Naomi Goodman, one of the leaders of the Jewish Peace Fellowship. Around 1970, and with JPF backing, Burton was instrumental in founding the Merton-Buber House, a storefront on the Lower East Side, designed to provide draft counseling for people of all faiths and backgrounds.
Burton was an emerging intellectual in the peace community and often represented the JPF at various functions. He then attended SUNY-Buffalo for his graduate work and wound up teaching some of the early classes in what later came to be known as gay studies.
For more than ten years he rarely saw him because he had moved to San Francisco. Then, one day at an antinuclear demonstration, I heard a voice calling “Allan.” There, lurking beneath a large raincoat was Burton, now living in the Berkeley hills with his partner, Elliot. He had become a seller of antiquarian and rare books.
We renewed our friendship and Burt and Elliot became regulars at our seders and Hanukkah parties, always contributing to the intellectual quality — and humor — of the evening. Eventually Burt and Elliot achieved a lifelong dream: they married and bought a place in Spain. There they found a castle in the village of Nou de Gaia, south of Barcelona.
Sadly, the dream was shattered in 2010 when Burton was diagnosed with throat and lung cancer. This past summer, when Elliot and Burton returned from Spain, Burton fell in front of their house. Weeks later, just in his early sixties, he was dead. Burton Weiss was a fierce proponent of pacifism and gay rights. His was an honorable and meaningful life.