W

hen Harry Reid was 19, he 
wanted to marry Landra 
Gould. Her Jewish parents 
had other ideas.
Reid, a middleweight boxer who con-
verted 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 lead-
er. He helped Democrats score multiple 
major legislation victories, including 
President Barack Obama’s signature 
Affordable Care Act.
Reid died Dec. 28, 2021, 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 eligi-

ble for Israeli citizenship,” Reid told The 
New Yorker in 2005.
Reid made close Jewish friends in 
Nevada, in part because he grew to love 
his wife’s Jewish roots — later in life, he 
wore his father-in-law’s ring — but also 
because it was inevitable in a state that 
Jews helped found and build.
Reid started buying Israel bonds early in 
his career. “I’
d say, ‘Harry, you can’t afford 
to give that much,
’” a close friend, Neil 
Galatz, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency 
in 2006, after Democrats swept Congress 
and Reid launched his eight-year stint as 
majority leader. “He’
d say, ‘I can’t afford 
not to.
’” Members of the Jewish and pro-Is-
rael communities in Nevada appreciated 
having a fighter on their side.
Reid was a leader on pro-Israel legis-
lation and shepherded major sanctions 
targeting Iran through Congress in 2010 
when, as majority leader in the Senate, 
he was busy muscling through the 
Affordable Care Act.
That was also the year of the Tea Party 
political insurgency. Republicans, who 
despised Reid’s pugnaciousness — he 
called President George W
. Bush a “loser” 
and a “liar” — were out for blood and 
raised big money for his Tea Party oppo-
nent, Sharron Angle. (Reid later apolo-
gized for calling Bush a “loser” but liked 
to say he never apologized for calling him 
a liar.)

Reid turned to pro-Israel donors for 
help, and they turned out for him, help-
ing to elect him to his final term.
Reid paid back the favor, making 
headlines in 2011 when he spoke at 
AIPAC’s annual policy conference and 
criticized Obama’s call for a peace deal 
based on 1967 lines.
It was not the only time Reid sided with 
the pro-Israel community against Obama 
administration policies. In 2016, he joined 
five other top Democrats in rapping 
the administration for not extending its 
anti-boycott policies to products made in 
Jewish settlements in the West Bank. He 
sided with Obama, however, on the most 
significant difference the president had 
with the pro-Israel community, the Iran 
nuclear deal. 
In 2015, after announcing that he would 
not run again, Reid endorsed Sen. Chuck 
Schumer, D-N.Y., to be his successor as 
caucus leader, a move that would propel 
Schumer in 2021 to become the first 
Jewish majority leader, the highest elected 
Jewish political figure in American history.
“Harry Reid was one of the most amaz-
ing individuals I’ve ever met,
” Schumer 
wrote Tuesday on Twitter, announcing that 
flags at the Capitol would fly at half mast. 
“He never forgot where he came from and 
used those boxing instincts to fearlessly 
fight those who were hurting the poor and 
the middle class.
” 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid 
Had Deep Jewish Ties

RON KAMPEAS JTA

JANUARY 6 • 2022 | 53

Then-Sen. Majority 
Leader Harry Reid speaks 
during an address to the 
American Israel Public 
Affairs Committee Policy 
Conference, May 23, 2011.

MANDEL NGAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

