Shatzi Weisberger

Weisberger was a political lesbian,^[7] a member of ACT UP,^[2] and a part of the public opposition to nuclear technology as a member of Dykes Opposed to Nuclear Technology.^[3] She was also an organiser with the Independence Party of New York City (which broke away from the Independence Party of New York) for 25 years.^[9]

Weisberger's activism began with direct action against racist redlining on Long Island during the Civil Rights era.^[10] One of Weisberger's earliest acts of activism took place at a queer die-in in New York City during the AIDS crisis,^[10] where she cried because she felt that she was "in the right place doing the right things with the right people".^[7]

Weisberger attended numerous protests and demonstrations in New York, leading The Advocate to describe her as "a fixture".^[7] She was active in protests against police brutality in the United States,^[7] supported abolition of the police and of prisons,^[11] and was associated with anti-Zionism.^[11] She became known for her protest signs, such as one reading "Jewish dyke standing with Palestinian queers".^[10]

In 2021, Weisberger cited her age as a positive contributor to her activism, explaining that her presence "brings attention to the issues that matter" and expressing an intent to participate in "as many demonstrations as I possibly can".^[1]

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (January 2026)

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding missing information. (January 2026)

Weisberger was jailed as a result of her actions against nuclear weapons.^{[citation needed]}

Weisberger wrote a column in HuffPost stating that she wanted the police to be abolished for her 90th birthday, and that the "only way all people will ever be able to live and die as they wish is if we pursue abolition.”^[6][12] On that day, she participated in a Black Lives Matter protest, in which she was dubbed "the people's bubbie" (a Yiddish term for a grandmother).^[1] During the Covid-19 pandemic, she broke curfew for elderly people to attend another Black Lives Matter protest.^[3][11] She would also go out alone to protest with a Black Lives Matter sign attached to her walker.^[11]

Weisberger grew up as a Zionist;^[1] she hoped to travel to Israel and live on a kibbutz.^[2] She later described this as the result of "brainwashing" during her childhood. She stated that around 1983, someone suggested that she read a book whose title she no longer remembered, and it led her to begin questioning her views on Zionism and eventually to oppose the ideology entirely.^[1] This took place roughly a year after the Shatila massacre.^[13]

As she became associated with the anti-Zionist movement, Weisberger worked with the Palestinian Defense Committee, founded by Rabab Abdulhadi, staffing their literature table at various events.^{[citation needed]} She also led Palestine-related workshops at the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival.^[14] She worked to build the political consciousness of other Jewish lesbians, arguing in a 1986 issue of WomaNews that "Jewish women in particular need to educate ourselves about the history of Zionism."^[14]

Weisberger was a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and associated with its New York City chapter for the last six years of her life.^[14] She told Middle East Eye in 2021 that being part of a community of Jewish anti-Zionists made it "much easier to protest against Zionism than it was before."^[1]

In her later life, Weisberger was diagnosed with macular degeneration^[1] and required the use of a walker to remain mobile.^[3] She was unable to take the New York City Subway, instead using the paratransit service Access-A-Ride to get to protests.^[13] She sang as part of the Brooklyn Women's Chorus.^[7] Asked about her "secret to longevity" in an interview for Glorious Broads, she cited dietary supplements, always being passionately engaged in a project, avoiding stress, drinking green tea, and smoking marijuana every night.^[2]

In 2018, Weisberger held a "FUN-eral" for herself in the common room of an Upper West Side apartment building. Guests decorated a cardboard coffin, ate and sang, and Weisberger spoke about death and dying.^[15] Wearing a colorful floral blouse for the occasion, she said that she wanted to experience her death and "to share the experience with anybody who’s interested".^[8] She told John Leland of The New York Times that she had worried she might die before hosting the funeral.^[16]

Weisberger experienced symptoms of a heart attack in 2020 during the COVID-19 lockdown in New York.^{[citation needed]} Rather than going to a hospital, she stayed home and recovered there.^[17]

In April 2022, Weisberger told the LGBTQ&A podcast that she hoped to have time to experience the dying process in her own home; items in her house were tagged with the name of the person to whom she wanted to bequeath them.^[18] She expressed a desire for people to say their goodbyes and pick up their bequeathed items before she died, and did not wish to be drugged. She planned to be buried in a forest in Upstate New York.^[7] She had additionally preselected a funeral director and a shroud.^[8]

After being diagnosed with untreatable pancreatic cancer in October 2022, Weisberger called Leland the following month, inviting him to report on the end of her life (and asking him to bring her a cannabis edible).^{[citation needed]} On November 18, she told Leland that she was getting her wish of experiencing the process of dying, and that while she was in extreme pain and unable to sleep she was "experiencing the best time of [her] life".^[8]

In preparation for her death, Weisberger contacted her estranged son.^{[citation needed]} She attempted to do the same with her daughter, who was unwilling to reconnect.^{[citation needed]} Despite difficulty caused by a labor shortage and high costs, she secured in-home hospice care with the aid of friends and a GoFundMe created by Jewish Voice for Peace.^[8] By November 21, she was in the company of friends and hospice care, and on that day, two film crews came to her apartment and Vogue was working on a profile of her.^{[citation needed]} Despite her wishes not to be drugged before her death, she wore a fentanyl patch to reduce pain, she had a morphine elixir but had not yet used it.^[8]

Weisberger had a "pain emergency" on November 25 and increased her dosage of pain medication.^{[citation needed]} On November 30, she postponed an interview with Vogue and did not see visitors, increasing her medication again.^{[citation needed]} She died at 12:40 a.m. on December 1.^{[citation needed]} That same day, the New York chapter of Jewish Voice for Peace posted on Instagram that Weisberger had died the night before at her home, in accordance with her wishes.^[19] An obituary published in BuzzFeed News noted that her death was widely mourned on social media,^[12] while Them reported that a "joyous online memorial" and celebration of life was being planned.^[10] Middle East Eye quoted a post on Twitter by Egyptian activist and academic Alia ElKattan, who wrote that she had encountered Weisberger at a Palestine-related event the week before her death.^[13] Weisberger's body was oiled and bathed by a group of her close friends, and she was buried in Rosendale, New York on December 2.^[8]