Samuel Bronfman

Samuel Bronfman, (February 27, 1889 – July 10, 1971) was a Canadian businessman and philanthropist. He founded Distillers Corporation Limited, and is a member of the Canadian Bronfman family. Biography Samuel Bronfman was born in Otaci, Soroca uyezd, Bessarabia, then part of the Russian Empire (present-day Moldova), one of eight children of Mindel and Yechiel Bronfman. He and his parents were both Jewish refugees of Czarist Russia's antisemitic pogroms, who immigrated to Wapella in the North-West Territories' District of Assiniboia. They soon moved to Brandon, Manitoba. A wealthy family, they were accompanied by their rabbi and two servants. Soon Yechiel learned that tobacco farming, which had made him a wealthy man in his homeland, was incompatible with the cold climate of that region. Yechiel was forced to work as a laborer for the Canadian Northern Railway, and after a short time moved to a better job in a sawmill. Yechiel and his sons then started making a good living selling firewood and began a trade in frozen whitefish to earn a winter income. Eventually, they turned to trade horses, a venture through which they became involved in the hotel and bar business. In 1903, the family bought a hotel business, and Samuel, noting that much of the profit was in alcoholic beverages, set up shop as a liquor distributor. He founded the Distillers Corporation in Montreal in 1924, specializing in cheap whisky, and concurrently taking advantage of the U.S. prohibition on alcoholic beverages. The Bronfmans sold liquor to the northern cities of the U.S. such as Boston, New York City and Chicago during the Prohibition era, where alcohol production and distribution was illegal, while operating from the perimeters of Montreal, Quebec where alcohol production was legal. On June 21, 1922, Bronfman married Saidye Rosner (December 9, 1896 – July 7, 1995), with whom he had four children: Aileen Mindel "Minda" Bronfman de Gunzburg (1925–1985), Phyllis Lambert (born January 24, 1927), Edgar Miles Bronfman (June 20, 1929 – December 21, 2013), Charles Rosner Bronfman (born June 27, 1931).