Valley residents recall Goldwater's community tiesSenator was staunch backer of Jewish causesFrom staff reports
As the longtime senator and Valley native was remembered fondly this weekThe retired senator, an Episcopalian whose father was Jewish, also was remembered this week as an avid supporter of the local Jewish community and a staunch defender of Israel. Burton Kruglick, a member of the state's transportation commission who recently completed a second term as president of Temple Beth Israel in Scottsdale, said his long association with Republican politics began in 1964, the year Goldwater ran for president. "I actually became very involved. I became state finance chairman for the Republican Party. ... and Harry Rosenzweig was state chairman (of the party). They used to say 'Barry, Harry and Burt.' " (Kruglick went on to be state chairman of the party for many years.) Kruglick notes that while Goldwater was a catalyst in galvanizing Republican support in what was long a Democratic state, the Arizona native's appeal went beyond politics. "He had a very warm feeling for (the Jewish community). But then Barry had a warm feeling for people in general. He liked being with people," said Kruglick. "He liked the community service he was involved in. He had a special feeling for serving, and money was not important to Barry. He could have been a multimillionaire, but he loved serving his country. You knew where Barry stood." Kruglick said Goldwater supported Valley organizations that advocated pro-Israel financial and political assistance, and also backed the Jewish community in matters regarding anti-Semitism. He said the retired senator also had a good, long-standing relationship with Rabbi Albert Plotkin, rabbi emeritus at Temple Beth Israel. Plotkin, who celebrated 50 years in the rabbinate this year "I knew Barry from the first week I came to town. Harry Rosenzweig (of Rosenzweig's Jewelers) "(Goldwater) contributed financially to the building of (Temple Beth Israel) at 10th Avenue and Flower. He said to me that he was very proud of his Jewish background, although when he was raised here, there was no Jewish synagogue. His mother took them all to church at Trinity Episcopal Church; that's where he was baptized. "Today, I gave him the full Jewish rites, read the Hebrew El Mole prayer, and recited a blessing for him at the very end. ... Susan Goldwater (his widow, who is a convert to Judaism) wanted something Jewish at Barry's funeral. ... I was very honored to be there, to represent the Jewish community." Plotkin co-officiated with the Rev. Carl Carlozzi of All Saints Episcopal, where Plotkin is rabbi in residence. Jerry Lewkowitz, a Temple Beth Israel member whose parents were among the synagogue's founders, was also a friend of Goldwater. Lewkowitz said one reason Goldwater had strong ties to the Jewish community was that he grew up alongside several of the Valley's earliest Jewish families. "I think his ties with the community were primarily through Harry Rosenzweig. They grew up together," said Lewkowitz. "(The Rosenzweigs) were a pioneer Jewish family. Harry Rosenzweig was born here." Lewkowitz recalled that Goldwater often appeared at temple and B'nai B'rith meetings. Prior to his political life, he would appear at community functions to give slide shows on Arizona, talking about his outdoor explorations with the aid of photos he had taken over the years. "The man was unselfish with his time. I can't envision a person with as much energy as he had, even up through his 80s," Lewkowitz added. "He spoke, four or five years ago, when the Arizona Jewish Historical Society did a thing on the merchants of Arizona. He spoke to that dinner, and he was very entertaining." In a 1996 interview with Jewish News, his wife Susan, who married Goldwater in 1992, said that because Barry Goldwater grew up in Phoenix, and his family had close ties to the Valley's first Jewish families, the community "was a significant part of Barry's life. He lights up when he recalls memories of his late Uncle Morris Speaking with Jewish News at his Paradise Valley home in 1994, Goldwater discussed his Jewish roots, saying, "I've heard that my dad (Baron) was bar mitzvah, but no one can prove it." His mother (Josephine Williams Goldwater), he said, "was a gentile, an Episcopalian from a small town in Illinois." Goldwater fondly recalled that there was a mezuzah on the doorpost of Morris Goldwater's home. The issue of Goldwater's religious background occasionally surfaced in the public arena, particularly after he earned the Republican presidential nomination in 1964. According to a report that year by Jewish Telegraphic Agency, a check of available records in Konin, the Polish ancestral home of Goldwater's family, indicated "that any relatives of the Senator's family probably were slaughtered by the Nazis." The grandfather of the presidential nominee was a Jewish peddler named Michael Goldwasser, who emigrated to the United States in 1849 when Konin was under Russian rule. (The name was subsequently changed to Goldwater, and the family established what would become a successful department store chain in Arizona.) According to JTA, Polish officials said that just prior to World War II, the Nazis organized a concentration camp in Konin, a town that at one time had 3,000 Jews. Officials said the Nazis destroyed all Jewish records. The nominee's religious status also surfaced in August of 1964, when according to JTA, a group called the American Council for Judaism, based in New York, protested to U.S. Rep. William Miller, Goldwater's running mate, about a statement in which Miller called Goldwater "half Jewish." (Remarking about the anti-Catholic and anti-Jewish bias of the Ku Klux Klan, Miller had said he was not "interested in the posture of the KKK, as he is wholly Catholic and Senator Goldwater is half Jewish.") The council noted that "while it is quite true that one of Sen. Goldwater's parents was of Jewish faith, the Senator elected the Christian faith. The integrity of that election should not be questioned." While he largely avoided making his background an issue in his public life, Goldwater left no question about his support of Israel over the years, during and after his Senate tenure. He was staunchly supportive of Israel throughout his career, but Goldwater also was pragmatic "I talked with Egyptians Nearly 40 years later, he was still sounding cautionary notes. In the 1994 interview with Jewish News, Goldwater said, "I don't predict peace. It's not Israel. It's (Palestinian leader Yasser) Arafat's people. I wouldn't trust Arafat as far as I could throw this house. He's a nobody and he represents a people that never has any land. If there's going to be another war, it'll be in the Mideast." Despite the doubts about peace, Goldwater described his awe of Israel in the way he often expressed his lifelong love of Arizona. In the 1955 letter to Jewish News, he drew parallels between Israel's creation and the pioneering early days of the American West. "Forget the spiritual thrill of biblical closeness 
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