Harvey Weisenberg: The Voice of the Voicelessa documentary film shown at the Long Island International Film Expo is about Harvey Weisenberg, a former New York State Representative and committed advocate for disability rights.
But if you ask Weisenberg what the film is really about, he’ll tell you it’s about a saint (his late wife Ellen), an angel (his son Ricky) and a mission.
“God gave me an angel, a saint and a mission,” says Weisenberg in the documentary.”
The 18-minute film, which screened July 12 at Bellmore Movies and Showplace, tells the story of a local lifeguard turned lawmaker and a love story. But it’s also a romance and a love story that changed the world and led to a wave of legislation.
The short film, which won the Alan Fortunoff Humanitarian Film Award at the Long Island International Film Expo, also won Best Documentary Short Film at New York’s Long Island Film Festival.
We accompany Weisenberg as he meets his future bride, as he works for the disabled, as he raises a disabled child and as he passes numerous laws to protect the disabled.
“I gave away my pension for ten years to people who needed it,” Weisenberg says in the lobby when asked if he is still helping. “Over a million dollars.”
“I came to meet Harvey and was completely moved by his life’s work,” said director Chalkley Calderwood. “I walked with him along the boardwalk. We couldn’t go ten steps without someone crying with gratitude or telling me he had changed their life. I was there.”
In the documentary, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli calls him the “loudest voice” advocating for the rights of children with special needs. Newsday In the documentary, reporter and Long Beach resident James Madore calls Weisenberg “the voice of the voiceless,” as the film’s subtitle states.
The film is a love story about a woman, a child, a family and a cause.
Weisenberg met and later married Ellen Serck in 1965. Their son Ricky was born with cerebral palsy. Thus began a romance that led to him taking on Ricky and Weisenberg’s interests, leading to more than 360 laws protecting the disabled and a victory in restoring vast amounts of funding to the disabled.
Weisenberg towered over many others physically and perhaps morally as he spoke on behalf of the vulnerable who face major financial cuts.
“I invite you, Mr. Governor, I invite the people in the budget to do me a favor,” he says in the film as he tells the assembly he wants to cut $90 million in funding for the disabled. “Come with me, come to a house, come to a group home, see who the kids are, talk to the people who work there.”
Almost all of his colleagues – 147 out of 150 MPs – voted to restore the funds. The money was enacted as part of the budget on September 27, 2013.
Ricky was the center of the family, even when he lived in shared apartments.
“He couldn’t speak for himself,” Weisenberg’s daughter Vicki Laufer says in the film. “He couldn’t take care of himself. If my parents had to do something, they had to do it.”
As a legislator, Weisenberg worked across party lines.
As an educator, police officer and elected official, Weisenberg held many positions in which he protected the public and was “fully dedicated to community concerns,” DiNapoli says in the documentary.
In an unforeseen moment when life imitates art, it turns out that Weisenberg has raised funds for the cinema to equip its toilets to be handicapped accessible.
Today, he remains a powerful, gentle giant, 6’2″ tall, and focuses all his energy on protecting the most vulnerable. “Ricky changed my life,” Weisenberg says in the lobby. “And I changed the lives of thousands of people.”
He says he is grateful for the 50 years he spent with Ellen, 48 of which were spent married before she passed away in 2016 at the age of 81. The loss still hurts him, but has not diminished his passion for helping those in need.
In the theater lobby, where Ellen’s face stares back from the screen saver, Weisenberg then shows a photo of Ricky at a nearby AHRC home in Plainview.
Weisenberg still works out (though he can’t lift his right arm like he once could) and continues to swim in a pool at a recreation center named after him. At 90, he is certified as a lifeguard but no longer works in that capacity.
Through helping others, Weisenberg found his true identity – with the help of an angel, a woman he still considers a saint, and a mission that still continues.
“Every night I say, ‘Thank you, God. Thank you for what I have and what I had,'” he says. “When I die, don’t cry for me. I had the luckiest life in the world.”
