Robert I. Weiss

Mr. Robert I. Weiss, 83, born on March 6, 1930 in New York, NY, passed away May 11, 2013 with his daughters at his side. He resided in Cathedral City, CA at the time of his passing. Bob was the son of Sol Weiss and Estelle (Gluck) Zinkhen. He attended Long Beach High School, Purdue University and became a high school English teacher. When the culture of the 1950s high school grew too confining, he made a career in the world of academic publishing. Before he left teaching, he met the late Jean Ahern Weiss on the first day of school in 1959 and they married at winter break at the Society for Ethical Culture in New York City. He worked for Random House, the University of Michigan Press, and Open Court publishing, then turned to television advertising, then joined the company from which he would retire, VWA. He devoted much of his time after retirement to travel. The voyages he enjoyed most included those to Israel, Japan, Vietnam (where he taught English to medical students), and Peru. Later, he discovered that on a cruise he could continue to see much of the world at the perfect pace and saw Scandinavia and Tahiti and other sites that way. He loved to read and the New York Times and the New Yorker were constant fixtures in his life. His eclectic taste in reading material is reflected in the books he most recently read: Drift, by Rachel Maddow, and Henry Roth's Call it Sleep which he returned to reading in April. In the late 1990s he moved to Cathedral City and forged a close community of friends in a climate and a home that he adored. Bob is survived by his daughters, Hilary White and son-in-law Steve White, Jessica Weiss and son-in-law Vlad Luskin, and three grandchildren: Michael and Gary White and Sophie Luskin. Bob is remembered for his storytelling and conversation (often politically charged), his larger than life personality, his commitment to staying in touch with old friends and dear cousins, and his love of travel and zest for new experiences. He supported a number of liberal causes and a contribution to an organization along those lines would be a fitting memorial.