Charles Bronfman

Who is he: Charles Bronfman is a Jewish Canadian philanthropist and businessman with a net worth, according to Forbes, in excess of $2 billion. Forbes ranked Bronfman as the 595th wealthiest person in the world and 15th in Canada. Most of the Canadian Bronfman family's fortune came from the liquor business, as his family made hundreds of millions during US Prohibition bootlegging illegal alcohol to the United States. Charles Bronfman was formerly Co-Chairman of the Seagram Company Ltd.

Background: Charles Rosner Bronfman was born on June 27, 1931 and was educated at the elite Selwyn House School in Montreal and then Trinity College School in Ontario. Charles Bronfman later went to McGill University, which is a major recipient of Bronfman donations.

Bronfman is a major philanthropist with numerous honorary doctorate degrees, which we assume are a result of contributions or the wish for funding from one of his many charities. Bronfman, together with Michael Steinhardt, co-founded Taglit-Birthright Israel, a Zionist charity providing free 10-day educational trips to Israel for young Jewish adults. Bronfman is also Chairman of Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies Inc., a family of charitable foundations in Israel, America and Canada.

Bronfman was the first Chairman of the United Jewish Communities, which merged a number of Jewish charitable groups together during the period 1999 to 2001. In business he served from 1997 to 2002 as Chairman of the Board of Koor Industries Ltd., one of the largest investment holding companies in Israel.

For a very long list of his many honors, accolades and honorary degrees, conduct an Internet search for his name on Wikipedia. Suffice it to say that the Bronfman family has bought themselves legitimacy and respectability with their liquor fortune by making major contributions to education, Israel, Jewish charities and other entities that purport to benefit the general public at large.

The idiocy of American Prohibition made many families wealthy and politically powerful, both in the United States (in the case of the Kennedys) and in Canada. However, this may have been the planned intention of the legislation in the first place. We believe the same pattern in the United States has been followed by Washington's failed War on Drugs. The drug policy directly targets the poor and minorities unable to afford the legal expertise to buy themselves out of prison. This in turn benefits the powerful business interests making big money from America's exploding prison population, which is the highest per capita in the world.