are opting more for a hands-on rela-
tionship to their beneficiaries.
Bronfman says he's determined to
bring the independent-minded givers
into the fold: "We've got to get private
foundations, big and small, back in
the game."
"I'd like to believe that we're at a
cusp where groups are learning to
get along better. I think the GA
(General Assembly) is
starting to learn that we
are a very broad commu-
nity and you can't make
one statement that repre-
sents every Jew, and we
have to get under the
same umbrella. When it
comes to Israel-diaspora relation-
ships, I think that Detroit is one of
the key cities, and I hear it every-
where I go. We're developing closer
ties than any other community."
— Rabbi E.B. "Bunny" Freedman,
Hospice of Michigan,
Jewish hospice services director
"I would hope that the
fact that there is an enor-
mous desire for the fed-
eration system to truly
take ownership of this
organization, that we will
have greater contribu-
tions from Detroit lay
leadership. That goes well beyond
those of us who have come. from
Detroit and been intimately involved
now, some of us, for a couple of
decades. Now is the time for other
lay participation to come forward. If
the federations are serious about
meeting their responsibilities as own-
ers, then full participation on the
national level should become a cen-
tral part of their agenda."
— Dr. Conrad
UJC chairman of task force on
Federation relations and services
"There are basically two
issues defining the con-
nection between the
local federations and this
national organization.
What kinds of autono-
my do the federations
have; what kinds of dis-
cipline need to be shared by all the
federations; what is the power of
the central organization; and what
is the power of the local federations
in terms of policies? Second, the
challenge is obvious — the great
emphasis is now on trying to rescue
American Jewry for Jewishness."
— Rabbi Sherwin Wine,
Birmingham Temple
o 1:4
11112
1999
26
Phot o by Adeline L.achin
Other Thoughts
A Love For Jews .
Israel ... Intermarriage ... Education
Ethiopia ... Those issues and a hun-
dred others reverberate through
Bronfman's Fifth Avenue apartment in
Manhattan, and in the other resi-
dences he and his wife Andy — the
daughter of influential and committed
British Zionists — keep in Palm
Beach, Jerusalem and Montreal.
"He'll have four or five couples
for dinner," says Rabbi Kula, who
has studied with Charles and Andy
for six years. "Thirty minutes into
dinner, he or Andy will say, What
do we think about pluralism in
Israel?' And go from there. It's all
about his love for Jews. The money
is absolutely irrelevant."
But it fuels Bronfman's passions
and turns them into other people's
life-changing opportunities. With
philanthropist Michael Steinhardt,
he is a founding partner of
Birthright Israel, which aims to pro-
vide a free trip to Israel for every Jew
between the ages of 15 and 26. The
Andrea and Charles Bronfman
Philanthropies and the Charles
Rosner Bronfman Foundation dis-
burse millions more for educational
programs in Israel and elsewhere.
His vision is that Israel has to be
central to Jewish identity and com-
munity," says Hillel's president,
Richard Joel. "In my arena alone,
that's 3,000 college students going on
a trip made possible by Charles
Bronfman's will and energy."
Bronfman lives his vision of the
Israel-Diaspora partnership. He has
invested tens of millions in Israel's
economy — he is chairman of Koor
Industries Ltd., Israel's largest holding
company. Most years, he and Andrea
spend three months in Jerusalem.
"I'm not religious," says Bronfman,
"but my love for the Jewish people
makes me religious."
Family History
In their way, they always have been.
The Bronfmans arrived in Canada in
the late 1880s — as the family stories
have it — "with a rabbi, money and a
maid." The family came from
Bessarabia, then part of Russia, where
making whiskey was a way of life.
(Bronfman literally means "whiskey
man" in Yiddish.)
Charles' paternal grandfather, a
stubborn fellow, decided he'd grow
tobacco in snowy Saskatchewan. "Ten
months later," says Charles, "there
wasn't any maid, wasn't any rabbi and
he was peddling wood." There were,
however, still eight children to feed.
Bronfman's maternal grandfather
fled Russia, bounced through London,
then headed off to Winnipeg where he
farmed and ran a general store. "They
made the Protestant work ethic look
like child's play," says Bronfman. "So
many folks went through hell so that
we could be where we are and live the
kind of life we do.
Family traditions and beliefs that
reverberate a century later were
ingrained in those tough years: an
abiding love for Canada; a fierce sense
of Jewish identity; a pioneer stubborn-
"Let's take one
challenge we've
screwed up in the
past ... and go
forward!"
ness that treats obstacles as opportuni-
ty; deep partnership, critical for sur-
vival, between husband and wife.
Sam Bronfman and Saidye Rosner
were children of those frontier unions
and chill winters; though never for-
mally religious, they inherited and
nourished a deep-rooted desire for a
life lived Jewishly. They went on to
build an enduring marriage and, and
upon that rock, one of the great com-
mercial empires on earth.
It's a fabulous success story, but not
without cost. Sam Bronfman was a
whiskeyman, a swashbuckling, larger-
and-louder-than-life empire-builder
who straddled the border, both physi-
cal and psychological, between sedate,
well-mannered Canada and riotous
Prohibition-era United States. He was
rarely home, and as the children of
such men come to learn, you never
knew which father would knock at the
door.
"My brother Edgar fought him,"
Charles recalls. "And I was scared of
him, but we both loved him. The
fact we grew up in a big house and
had a chauffeur and butler didn't
mean anything. I'd rather eat in the
kitchen than in the dining room.
The boys had one nanny and the
girls had another. We didn't have
enough of our parents. "
Sam had a fierce need, common
in self-made men, for social accep-
tance, and projected that need onto
his four children. Both boys were
shipped off to Trinity College School
in Ontario. They were the first Jews
to attend the elite Anglican prep
school, an experience Charles
remembers as a total disaster.
The other Sam Bronfman was the
dedicated Jew with "the strong value
system," the one who demanded his
children "make a difference." And
meant it. Sam took the time from his
business interests, increasingly cen-
tered in New York, to serve as presi-
dent of the Canadian Jewish Congress.
Saidye Bronfman organized the first
Canadian YMHA and YWHA.
According to Charles, Edgar
Bronfman has said that the thing he
wanted most was for his father to say,
"I love you."
Instead he was handed the reins
and responsibility for the business.
Over time, Edgar's need to be loved
curdled into a fierce thirst for success,
for justice, for approbation, and, by
most accounts, a lifelong need to
prove himself.
"Whether their offspring loved
them or not at the end of the day, "
says Charles, "our parents still incul-
cated that need to do well. The
amazing thing about dominating
parents, whether they're famous,
infamous or neither of the above, is
that their kids usually don't make it.
All four of us made it."
Bronfman's sister Phyllis is an archi-
tect; Minda, another sister, who
according to some accounts never for-
gave her father for not using her abili-
ties in the business, is deceased.
Charles and Andy together have
five children. Charles' son Stephen
is about to join the Seagram's board,
but he doesn't want to work for the
company," says Charles. "He's
happy doing his own thing" — run-
ning a private investment company
in Montreal and a foundation spe-
cializing in environmental and edu-
cational issues.
Daughter Ellen, a Yale graduate,
lives with her husband in the United
Kingdom.
Andy's children's interests are even
more diverse. Jeremy Cohen works
for professional baseball. Tony runs
a boutique hotel in Toronto.
LEADERSHIP on page 32