Obituary for Arnold Kantrowitz
Arnold Kantrowitz, pioneering and beloved gay activist and writer, passed away peacefully in his sleep on 1/21/22 at the Upper East Side Rehabilitation Center in New York City, where he was being treated for complications of COVID.
Arnie was the author of a gay classic, Under The Rainbow: Growing Up Gay, which famously described the first Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day Parade in New York City in 1969. Together with his closest friend, leading gay activist Vito Russo, he was a leader of Gay Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), and later became a co-founder of The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). He established a pioneering Gay Studies program at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, where he served as Professor and Chair of the Department of English. He wrote often and notably about his own beloved hero, the poet Walt Whitman. This included an unpublished novel, Poet of the Body, and a published monograph, Walt Whitman, for a Gay Writers series. His last major activist efforts were around having Whitman's gayness acknowledged in ongoing initiatives such as those of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in Huntington Station, New York.
A self-taught scholar of the Holocaust and Jewish literatures who remained acutely sensitive to and articulate about antisemitism, Arnie was truly a a goldene nshmh--a golden soul. He was a wise elder and champion whose loss will be mourned by his his family and by the many students, colleagues and friends whose lives he so deeply touched. He is survived by his life partner, Larry Mass, and his brother, Barry Kantrowitz.
Arnie was the author of a gay classic, Under The Rainbow: Growing Up Gay, which famously described the first Christopher Street Gay Liberation Day Parade in New York City in 1969. Together with his closest friend, leading gay activist Vito Russo, he was a leader of Gay Gay Activists Alliance (GAA), and later became a co-founder of The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). He established a pioneering Gay Studies program at the College of Staten Island, CUNY, where he served as Professor and Chair of the Department of English. He wrote often and notably about his own beloved hero, the poet Walt Whitman. This included an unpublished novel, Poet of the Body, and a published monograph, Walt Whitman, for a Gay Writers series. His last major activist efforts were around having Whitman's gayness acknowledged in ongoing initiatives such as those of the Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in Huntington Station, New York.
A self-taught scholar of the Holocaust and Jewish literatures who remained acutely sensitive to and articulate about antisemitism, Arnie was truly a a goldene nshmh--a golden soul. He was a wise elder and champion whose loss will be mourned by his his family and by the many students, colleagues and friends whose lives he so deeply touched. He is survived by his life partner, Larry Mass, and his brother, Barry Kantrowitz.