Rifleman Baruch  (Ben or Benny) Burtson (or Burstyn) was born in Kielcze, Poland on Nov. 29, 1925, the third child of Kalman and Raisel Burzstyn. His family moved to Toronto in 1928 and his mother died shortly thereafter.

Kalman’s second wife, Sara, brought a child of her own, Bill Lipson, into the sibling group. Baruch’s three older siblings, Ruth, Harry and Bill, were followed in due course by three more, Elsie, Hermi and Allan.

Following in his brother Harry’s footsteps, in his early teens, Baruch joined Hashomer Ha’Tzair, a Zionist youth movement. Despite his lively intelligence and many gifts, young Baruch elected not to pursue a profession but instead learned carpentry in order to help build an egalitarian and socialist homeland for Jewish people, especially those injured and displaced by the Holocaust, in British-mandated Palestine.

He had enlisted in the Canadian Army toward the end of WWII, was posted to The Queen’s Own Rifles as a reinforcement on 2 Mar 1945 and was wounded and captured in combat in Holland on 22 Apr 1945. Shortly after the Canadians captured the German hospital (run by Dutch nuns) where he was being treated.

During his convalescence in England, he met his wife Margalit (Maggie) Diamond.

After they married, they emigrated to Palestine in 1947, becoming founding members of Kibbutz Sasa, returning to Toronto in 1955 with two children, Varda, born in 1948, and Daniel, born in 1954. Their third child, Jonathan, arrived in 1961.

In the early 1960s, Ben and his family returned to Israel for 18 months. Baruch and Maggie’s intention to settle in Israel permanently was scuttled by Maggie’s near-fatal illness, which compelled them to return to North America in search of better medical care, a necessary decision, but a very difficult one for Baruch, because many close friends and family members, with whom he remained in frequent contact, were there.

Still, in due course, with the kind assistance of his older siblings, he built a successful construction company (Strongway Ltd), which specialized in building factories and apartment buildings.

Baruch was not a pious soul, nor a formally educated person. But he was an extremely talented and well-informed man who could easily have become an accomplished artist or musician, a lawyer or doctor, an original scholar or humanist. As it was, he was a lively conversationalist of wit and depth who loved good art, architecture and music and whose lifelong commitments ran very deep.

A devoted husband and father, he supported and cared for his wife and children under very difficult circumstances. He was a founding member of the NDP and remained a highly informed and active Canadian citizen his whole life, becoming ever more environmentally concerned in his last decades.

At the same time, he was deeply committed to the welfare of the Jewish people, expressed in his lifelong commitment to a democratic and egalitarian Israel, in efforts and organizations that have sought peaceful co-existence with the Palestinian people. He devoted many hours and considerable funds to Friends of Peace Now Canada and was a staunch supporter of the Meretz Party in Israel. He never wavered from the essential values of kindness, compassion and equality that informed all his own views and actions.

In his last years the loving support and constant fellowship of his younger siblings, Allan and his wife Lucy Burston; and sister, Hermi Spears; and his devoted nephew, Joshua Burston, enriched his life greatly despite the terrible constraints of COVID. These close ones he leaves behind, along with his devoted son, Daniel; wife, Sharna; and grandchildren, Adam and Gavriela; and daughter, Varda Burstyn with husband David Fenton; and many cousins, nieces and nephews in Canada and in Israel who also mourn his passing.

On 4 June 2023, Baruch Burston passed away peacefully in his sleep at the Veteran’s Centre at Sunnybrook Hospital and was buried at Pardes Shalom Cemetery, Vaughan, Ontario.