Goldwater, GoldwasserEditorial"A piece of Arizona Jewish history." That's how Susan Goldwater described her now late husband to a Jewish News reporter in a 1994 interview.And although Barry Goldwater, memorialized this week, neither identified nor practiced as a Jew, his life resonated with qualities that define the American Jewish experience. His Jewish grandfather, "Big Mike" Goldwasser, left his native Poland in the mid-19th century to avoid conscription in the Russian army. Lured to America by aspirations for a better life, he and his brother tried their hands at several failed businesses, including a California saloon, before setting their sites on the Arizona Territory. They filled a mule-drawn wagon with goods, and then set out for Gila City, a mining camp east of Fort Yuma. Eventually, they established permanent locations in La Paz and nearby Ehrenberg, then stores in Prescott, Bisbee and Phoenix. By the early 1900s, Goldwater's had become Phoenix's leading department store. Goldwater followed his grandfather and father into the mercantile business, and then pursued a political career, in which he soon established himself as the voice of American conservatism. His entrepreneurial spirit, Western individualism and intense love of freedom were the legacy of the Goldwasser family, even as he was raised in the religion of his Episcopalian mother, and even as his political philosophy diverged from his family's more liberal democratic bent. (Goldwater's uncle Morris, a close political mentor, was a founding father of the Arizona Democratic Party.) In recent years, the senator's deviation from the prevailing Republican party line reflected as much the privilege of a crusty politician and the principle of a plain-spoken populist, as the tremendous resiliency of the foundations of democracy he and his Jewish forefathers so cherished. Goldwater will be remembered by many in the Phoenix Jewish community for his warmth and friendship, for his inherent respect for Jewish tradition and defense of personal freedoms. Yes, he was a piece of Arizona Jewish history. And he will be missed. 
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