By Larry Judkins
Glenn County Observer
Longtime readers of The Sacramento Valley Mirror may remember the letters to the newspaper’s religion editor (yours truly, until mid-January of 2021) written by Leonard Burkhardt.
He wrote to The Mirror almost weekly from 1997 (perhaps a year or so earlier) to 2018 (perhaps a year or so later). His “Religion Soapboxes,” as his letters were called, numbered somewhere around 1,000.
When he began submitting letters to The Mirror, he was living in the Redding, Calif., area. In later years, he was living in Niles, Ill., a village adjacent to northeast Chicago.
This reporter became acquainted with Burkhardt long before either of us began writing for The Mirror. In the early 1990s, we both began volunteering at the Redding Feminist Health Center, an abortion clinic.
Burkhardt, who was only about 70 at the time, helped escort clients past the abortion protesters, while I worked to divide various groups of protesters (Catholics and fundamentalist Protestants, for instance) and distract various protesters by debating religion with them.
Interestingly, when Mirror Publisher Tim Crews was in court, facing jail time for refusing to reveal the sources for one of his reports, both Burkhardt and one prominent abortion protester were there to support Crews. As I pointed out at the time, when two people with such otherwise opposing political views agree that the legal system’s actions are endangering the First Amendment, it’s a pretty good indication that the court is making a serious blunder.
In addition to these encounters, I also met with Burkhardt at such Redding-area gatherings as two or three National Day of Prayer protests, a solstice celebration for Shasta County atheists and other freethinkers, a picnic or two for the same group of unbelievers, and some other events.
Leonard Burkhardt died peacefully in Chicago, Ill., on Sunday, Nov. 6, 2022. He was born in Chicago to Sam and Bessie Burkhardt on March 7, 1922, during the Roaring Twenties.
In 1930, during the Great Depression, he and his family moved to Los Angeles. From 1942 to 1945, he served in the U.S. Army, spending much of World War II in strategically important Panama.
On Nov. 30, 1946, he married Mildred “Millie” Stein, his “kindred spirit.” As the obituary in The Redding Record Searchlight stated, the Burkhardts “had the admirable quality of doing what is right, not what is comfortable, often stepping out from the crowd.
“They led by example, with kindness and unselfishness.”
After World War II, Burkhardt worked during the day and went to school at night. According to The Record Searchlight, in 1958, some 18 years after he took his first post-high school, pre-war courses, he graduated with a degree in education.
He taught for six years before settling in Redding in 1964, where he accepted a position teaching the high school district’s moderately handicapped students. He taught there for 20-plus years.
During summers, also for 20-plus years, he served as the arts and crafts director at Camp Castanoan, a camp for children and adults with physical and/or developmental disabilities in Santa Clara County.
Burkhardt had an interesting habit of being in the right place at the right time to rescue people. Skilled in first aid, he twice saved people in horrific car accidents, and once rescued a tied-up custodian, the victim of a robbery.
Burkhardt was always ready with a joke or a poem, and while not aggressive in an economic sense, he was quite the opposite when it came to expressing his beliefs. His scrapbooks are filled with some 200 letters to the editor published in newspapers on such subjects as gun control, pollution, religion, American Indian and farmworker rights, press freedoms, etc.
But nothing touched the nerve of Burkhardt’s outrage and eloquence as did the Vietnam War. “His words were harsh and designed to disturb,” stated his obituary in The Record Searchlight.
He was also a frequent participant in anti-war parades, marches, and silent vigils, carrying anti-war signs, which he also displayed near his home and on his car. “I didn’t keep my views a secret,” he said.
Burkhardt participated in many organizations as a member or board member, including the ACLU, American Field Service, American Red Cross, Boy Scouts, Council for Exceptional Children, Democratic Party, NAACP, The Arc, Unitarians, United Nations Association, his synagogue, and prisoner support groups.
He and his wife also harbored homeless teenagers and abused children, and, as he once related in one of his “Soapboxes” in The Mirror, the couple provided sanctuary for legal and illegal immigrants, many fleeing for their lives.
An advocate for world peace, he once said, “If we had exerted ourselves here on Earth, we could have created a Garden of Eden. Instead, we seem hell-bent on destruction.”
He is survived by his children, Sam, Dave, and Judy; grandchildren Jacob and Rachel; sisters-in-law Nila and Marsha; and nephews and nieces Lewis, Paul, Sara, Jenny, and Gareth. He was preceded in death by his wife of 66 years, Millie, who died in 2012.
His loved ones recommend that readers “help continue Leonard’s humanitarian legacy by doing your own kindness or donating to your favorite charity.”
By early 2018, Mirror Publisher Tim Crews was growing weary of running opinion pieces (columns and letters) on the religion page, and he began “cutting and pasting” national news stories for the page. As a result, some of Burkhardt’s later letters did not get printed.
One of those letters, written on Feb. 21, 2018, follows:
“Religion Editor:
“I write this as news broke about not unexpected profiteering from construction of the ridiculous wall, planned to discourage Latino neighbors from swarming too easily into our sacred lands.
“Walls have been constructed for defensive measures down through the ages. Romans built a wall in northern Britannia to keep Scots out; the ancient Chinese (with plenty of cheap labor) built the world’s longest, most massive defensive wall; and just across Rome’s Tiber River, in the Middle Ages, a wall was built to defend the Eternal City from barbaric attacks.
“Unfortunately, we no longer enjoy the free labor that those countries had in the past. In addition, we are becoming heavily over-budgeted in many areas.
“This reminds me of my own situation when I lived between Redding and Palo Cedro, in Shasta County. At that time, I had two innovative dogs who tested my resolve with their doggone tactics in the adequately fenced yard where they played.
“Niki would dig under the fence while Mamie could, surprisingly, climb over the fence!
“Many of us have been told, in church-related stories, that the ethnic Jew, Saint Peter, diligently guards the Pearly Gates at the entrance to Heaven. If you are as inquisitive as I am, you might have wondered whether celestial walls surround God’s Heaven.
“If not, then why have a gate? And if such a wall does exist, is it to keep good souls in or bad spirits out?
“On another topic, if you or I go to different lands, our names still remain the same. Why is it then that the supposed One-and-Only-God has a different name (or even names) with each religious group?
“In Greece, the chief god (of many) was Zeus, while among Romans he was called Jupiter; Osiris was the head god among numerous Egyptian deities; Mazda, I believe, was a leading god of light for ancient Persians; and Dagon was the principal creator of Phoenicians.
“Among Germans, He is called Gott. There are four words used in Hebrew that mean God: Adonai, El, Elohim, and Yahweh.
“In addition, Jehovah’s Witnesses, of course, still pronounce the four Hebrew consonants from which we get Yahweh as Jehovah!
“I ask you, if you were the real God, wouldn’t you want all your worshippers to know your true name, or are the names infinite, like everything else may be in an infinite universe?
“Leonard Burkhardt”
The Glenn County Observer 