When Harry Reid was 19, he wanted to marry Landra Gould. Her Jewish parents had other ideas.
Reid, a middleweight boxer who converted to the Church of Latter-day Saints as a college student, got into a fistfight with Gould’s father in her front yard. And then he and Landra eloped.
Reid’s pugilistic sensibility served him well in politics, lifting him up from abject poverty in Nevada on to Congress, where he became the Democratic Party’s Senate majority leader. He helped Democrats score multiple major legislation victories, including President Barack Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act.
Reid died Tuesday at 82 in Henderson, Nevada, a suburb of Las Vegas. The cause was pancreatic cancer.
Within weeks of marrying Landra, Reid reconciled with his in-laws and introduced Jewish customs into his household. The Reids lit Shabbat candles in their home until Landra’s parents died. They kept a mezuzah on the door of their home in Searchlight, where Reid grew up.
“My two oldest children have great affection for things Jewish, and my three younger children are aware of their mother’s lineage, and all of them are very proud of the fact that they are eligible for Israeli citizenship.”
