Bronfman Visits CSUN, Speaks of Jewish Pride : Religion: The chairman of Seagram, new owner of MCA, comes to talk about ‘a renaissance of the spirit.’
The Edgar M. Bronfman traveling revival show swooped into the San Fernando Valley in a private jet on Tuesday, bringing a billionaire whiskey magnate onto the Cal State Northridge campus with a message of religious renaissance to students.
Tall and trim and wearing a wildly colored tie atop a red shirt, the chairman of Seagram Co. Ltd. left his bodyguard outside by the limo as he spent three hours joshing and noshing at the school’s Hillel Jewish Center.
On the menu: salmon, pasta and Tropicana orange juice--a popular Seagram-owned brand. On the agenda: Jewish pride, study and renewal--popular Bronfman themes.
“We need a renaissance of the spirit,” he declared at the luncheon, which followed a smaller group chat peppered with earnest student testimonials and humorous Bronfman shtick. “I hope and pray your upbeat attitude will spread like wildfire around the world.”
At an age when most corporate leaders are retiring or lounging in the Caribbean if they’re not still working nonstop to expand their businesses, the 65-year-old New Yorker spends half his waking life traveling the world on behalf of Jewish causes.
As president of the World Jewish Congress, he has met with 80 heads of state over the past two decades to encourage the freedom of Jewish religious practices. Widely credited with playing a key role in the release of Jews from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, he counts the president of Israel as a friend, hobnobs with the Pope when visiting Rome and last week hosted the president of Brazil at his New York home.
Bronfman also played an important role in disclosing the Nazi past of former United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim; he later later successfully encouraged the U.S. Justice Department to bar Waldheim from entering the United States as president of Austria.
But Bronfman fears that those are yesterday’s battles.
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In an effort to encourage a revival of faith among young people, he has spent the past year touring college campuses--Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, Yale, among others--to encourage students to study Jewish principles and apply them to their lives.
“The biggest problem today is not anti-Semitism,” he said. “It’s the lack of Semitism.”
Though gracious and personable--CSUN student Gabrielle Landau, his 22-year-old luncheon seatmate, pronounced him “the sweetest man”--Bronfman pursues his goals at a relentless pace.
The visit to CSUN and meeting with President Blenda Wilson followed weekend stops at Hillel centers at UC Berkeley and Stanford University. Today he meets with Jewish leaders at UCLA. Thursday, he boards his Gulfstream jet--dubbed “Hillel 1” by a companion--to bring religion to Ohio State University.
Even some business ties have religious overtones--as Bronfman’s family, business and faith have begun to overlap in Los Angeles.
His son, Edgar Jr., recently engineered Seagram’s purchase of a controlling interest in the Valley’s largest private employer, MCA Inc., the giant film, book, music and amusement park conglomerate headquartered in Universal City.
While the entertainment industry buzzes with speculation over whether he will manage to retain longtime MCA links to blockbuster motion-picture director Steven Spielberg, the elder Bronfman will meet with Spielberg on a philanthropic question today.
Bronfman said Spielberg has encouraged him in a telephone conversation to invest in an ambitious project to create an archive of videotaped statements from the tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors still alive throughout the world.
Bronfman said he expects Spielberg to ask him for a contribution of $20 million to the Survivors of the Shoah Visual History Foundation, which seeks to make the tapes available at five museums around the globe.
Bronfman, a leading donor to universities and museums and Jewish centers from New York to Jerusalem, called the idea “marvelous” but said he might offer fund-raising ideas instead to the foundation, which was created with a major contribution from, among others, MCA Chairman Lew R. Wasserman.
Still, he said he does not intend to pursue his religious agenda through MCA’s films and other entertainment products.
“Business is business and Moses is Moses,” he said.
Rabbi Jerrold Goldstein, director of the Hillel Center at CSUN, said Bronfman’s visit provided a boost at a critical time to his program, which seeks to provide social and cultural support for Jewish students. Jewish enrollment at the commuter school has dropped from 8,000 five years ago to 3,500 today.
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The two dozen of those who met Bronfman on Tuesday discovered a man who does not consider himself particularly devout yet believes himself guided by the laws and ethical standards of his faith.
“I believe you don’t have to lie and cheat and rob widows to be successful at business,” he said. “Our faith offers principles that help us lead an ethical life. And being moral helps you attract and keep better people to help you build a better business.”
With that, Bronfman set off by limousine--a former FBI agent by his side for protection. He left Hillel International Director Richard Joel behind briefly to elucidate the purpose of his visit.
“It’s the Edgar and Richard show,” said Joel, a former New York prosecutor who travels with Bronfman. “Students can get very turned on by meeting a Jewish billionaire. It’s a value-added experience. They learn that Edgar Bronfman and they are members of the same club. It’s very inspiring.”