The Baruch community was saddened by the passing of Leon Weiss (’58) on Oct. 11, 2012. Weiss, a longtime supporter of the College (his first gift to The Baruch College Fund was received in 1985), was the owner and founder of Leon Weiss Accountancy Corporation, in Los Angeles. He was 82 years old.
Born in 1930 in Khust, Czechoslovakia (now part of the Ukraine), Weiss studied Hebrew at the renowned Khust yeshiva before World War II enveloped his hometown. During the war, Weiss endured imprisonment in Auschwitz concentration camp; lost most of his family—his brother, sister, mother, and father; and sustained a serious head injury.
When the Allies liberated Europe at the end of WWII, the U.S. Army helped Weiss relocate to New York City, where he received crucial medical attention from top specialists at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center and other world-class hospitals. His treatment and recovery took the better part of a year and left him with partial paralysis throughout his life.
A determined young man, Weiss completed his high school education and, in spite of his disability, took a job as a courier. Even though he struggled to make ends meet, he enrolled at Baruch College (then “City College downtown”), attending night classes part time with the goal of bettering himself.
The story Weiss most often told his family of his Baruch years was of having to take and retake classes to prove his English language proficiency. (When Weiss arrived in New York City in the late 1940s, he knew no English.) Pride rather than annoyance suffused those memories, pride in the College’s high standards and pride in his eventual success. “Leon looked at those days in triumph,” recalls Steven Chudy, his stepson. “What I admire most about Leon is that he would never give up. He never thought there was a problem that couldn’t be solved by hard work.” Weiss earned his BBA in accountancy in 1958; after graduation he was hired at a private accounting firm.
In the early 1960s, Weiss followed his heart to California, where he started his own accounting business, the Leon Weiss Accountancy Corporation, but where, more importantly, he could woo and marry Cilka Gottesman, whom he first met in Czechoslovakia. (Cilka was also a concentration camp survivor.) The two were married for 34 years. “’Soulmates’ is not a strong-enough term to describe their devotion to each other,” remembers Chudy. “Most of the time, Leon was serious, solid, but my mother could melt him anytime.” Weiss honored Cilka, who predeceased him by 10 years, with a special gift to Baruch’s Class Act Campaign in 2006. The state-of-the-art Cilka Weiss Lecture Hall, named in her honor, is located on the third floor of the College’s Newman Vertical Campus building.
Chudy has many happy memories of his devoted stepfather, whom he calls “truly a self-made man” and “the most ethical man I have ever known.” His stepson remembers a man passionate about reading and learning; a lover of classical music; a puzzle enthusiast (“He was a Jumble fanatic: There may have been five Jumbles he missed in his lifetime”); a fierce competitor at paddleball and Ping Pong—in spite of his physical limitations; and a man who, in earlier days, liked nothing better than driving his prized burnt-orange 1953 Chevy Belair.
What does Chudy consider Weiss’s greatest gift to himself and his family? “Leon instilled in me and later in his grandchildren a deep respect for education. He knew that he wouldn’t have been as successful without his Baruch College education,” says Chudy.
Baruchians return Weiss’s respect and affection. “I so enjoyed the time I spent with Leon Weiss. He was even more amazing when you considered his life story,” says Mark Gibbel, Baruch’s vice president for college advancement. “Leon had a twinkle in his eye, a wry smile, an almost Mona Lisa–like quality. And there was a playfulness in his manner when he talked about Baruch that I loved.”
Also recalling the pleasure of meeting Weiss in California in 2012, Baruch College Fund President Joel Cohen (’59) speaks for the entire institution when he says, “Baruch’s future depends on the loyalty and commitment of alumni and friends like Leon who endorse the College’s mission and are willing to become our partners in education.”
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