Leon was born near Cleveland as the Great Depression was getting underway. His family moved to Palestine for several years but in 1936 returned to settle in The Bronx. At age 17 Leon entered the military for a short tour. He has worked and made his home in the San Francisco Bay Area since the early 1950's. When Berkeley was becoming known for growth of the  counter-culture he was drawn further into meditation, activism, and the campus milieu. He entered the conscious search for a way of being in the world that accepts the individual and invites loving co-creation of relationship and has been a part of personal and collective transformative efforts ever since, including:  the Community Liaison Group (1967-1968), the Cultural Integration Fellowship (1971-), the Pea Soup Community (1972-), the World Citizens Assembly (1974-), the International Cooperation Council (1975-1977), Communal Grapevine (1981-), PeaceMAP (1984-1985), Peace and Environment Coalition (1984-1985), ongoing Community Building circles, and the Dedicated Weekly Group (1997-1998).

Not belonging to organizations but exploring individual paths of growth developed his sense of the necessity for inclusivity and the individual in co-creation. Through all of these things Leon was looking for something and becoming disappointed. A longing for "something really decent, without all the skeletons in the closet," and disinclined to unravel as a result of relational glitches. Trying to find peace happening within peace-making organizations seemed more and more unlikely, activists displaying an inclination to "fight like cats and dogs" within their ranks. The foregoing resume suggests some "flashes of glory" but misses a central theme from Leon's life - the longing for deeply rewarding relationships, community, and the co-creation of a more decent world. He is particularly drawn to combining the uses of silence with applied communication skills.