Julius Goldwater

Goldwater died on 11 June 2001 at the age of 93, and was survived by Pearl, his wife of 71 years. He was believed to be the oldest living Western convert to Buddhism.

Goldwater was beloved by the former internees, some of whom sent him money long after the war. He rejected the idea that his actions were heroic, declaring in 1992, "I only behaved as any American would have done."

Goldwater was born in Los Angeles to Benjamin Goldwater and Ray Etta (née Michaels). His family, who originally spelled their name Goldwasser, were prosperous merchants of Russian and German Jewish descent who came to California with the Gold Rush and established Goldwater's department store. Julius was a first cousin of Barry Goldwater, who would later be a five-term U.S. senator for Arizona and the Republican candidate for president in 1964.

Goldwater established the Buddhist Brotherhood of America to print and disseminate nonsectarian Buddhist literature, including hymns set to the tune of Protestant hymns which Goldwater had first heard at Aimee Semple McPherson's Pentecostal revivals. He believed that in order for Buddhism to survive in America, it would need to assimilate and adopt more American trappings. In 1944, he persuaded the Buddhist Mission of North America to rebrand itself as the Buddhist Churches of America.

After returning to California he was a member of a Jodo Shinshu temple in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. He was popular with Nisei youth, organizing novel activities like dances. The Issei priests felt that he could play a valuable role in encouraging Nisei to regard Buddhism as compatible with American identity. Though not personally eager to ordain, he felt obligated to meet the need of the community, and therefore in the 1930s he went to Japan and was ordained as a Jodo Shinshu priest. He ordained again in another lineage in Hangzhou, China, spent time at a monastery, and received the Dharma name "Subhadra".

Though curious about Eastern religion, Goldwater paid little attention to Buddhism until he and his father relocated to Hawaii in the 1920s. Here he encountered Buddhist teachers including the British convert Ernest Shinkaku Hunt, the Japanese bishop Yeimyo Imamura, and the Chinese monk Taixu. Ernest Hunt made a particularly strong impression on Goldwater, telling him that Buddhism was "self-validating as you go along", unlike religions which required blind faith. Goldwater took refuge in Honolulu in 1928, becoming one of the earliest Jewish Buddhists in the United States.

Julius A. Goldwater (09 February 1908 - 11 June 2001) was an American Buddhist clergyman noted for his services to Japanese Americans during the period of internment during World War II.