Bronfman, Saidye Rosner, 1896-1995 : Saidye Rosner Bronfman (1896-1995), was born in the prairie town of Plum Coulee, Manitoba (a town sixty miles south of Winnipeg). She was the second of four daughters of Samuel and Priscilla (nee Berger) Rosner, who emigrated from Russia in the early 1890s. After completing courses at Havergal Ladies' College in Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba, she married Samuel Bronfman C.C. in 1922. In 1924, they moved to Montreal where Samuel was to found the Distillers Corporation Ltd. In 1928, the Distillers Corporation was merged with Joseph E. Seagram & Sons of Waterloo, Ontario. The new company created by this merger would eventually become the world's largest distillery and the crux of an international financial empire.
Saidye Rosner Bronfman was to have four children, Aileen Minda de Gunzburg (who predeceased her mother in 1985), Phyllis Lambert O.C., the founder and Director of the Canadian Centre for Architecture, the only independent institution in the world devoted to the art of architecture and its history, Edgar Miles and Charles Rosner, P.C., C.C. She had 11 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. Throughout her life, Saidye Bronfman worked tirelessly for various charities and causes. She possessed a distinct sense of the value and worth of communal responsibility. The deep religious values and the family traditions established by her parents were to strongly influence her life in her role as devoted and supportive mother and wife and were to instill a deep commitment to philanthropic endeavours.
Saidye Bronfman was to play a major role as a fundraiser, supporter and leader in various Jewish charitable appeals and organizations. From local achievements in Montreal, her role in national Jewish Organizations in Canada, and her support of various organizations founded to establish Israel. Some of Saidye Bronfman's community involvements and international awards and achievements are; Founder and first President of the Womens' Division of the Combined Jewish Appeal 1931-1933; involvement with the Winnipeg Jewish Orphan's Home; President of the Young Woman's Hebrew Association in the 1930s in Montreal; Honorary President of the Federation of Allied Jewish Community Services in 1954; in 1943, she became an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) to recognise her efforts in establishing and heading the Jewish branch of the Canadian Red Cross Society, which organised women to help in the war effort and she was its first president during the Second World War; The National Council of Jewish Women; the Jewish General Hospital; Canada-Israel Cultural Foundation; she was the first woman to receive a fellowship from the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1972; the Samuel Bronfman Medal in 1982, given by the Canadian Jewish Congress to recognise those who have contributed to the "betterment" of their community; the Prime Minister's medal in 1954 by Golda Meir for contribution to the development of the nation of Israel; honoured by State of Israel Bonds as its first Woman-of-the-Year for work in the community, 1968; the Ben-Gurion Negev Award in May, 1981.
Saidye Bronfman in partnership with her husband, Sam, was to become a major benefactor of the arts in Canada. The establishment of Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation supported and encouraged Canadian artists with the endowment of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Collection of Canadian Art in 1963. She also established the Saidye Bronfman Award for Excellence in the Crafts to celebrate its 10th anniversary in 1986 The Bronfman Family Foundation supported the acquisition and exhibition of a collection of work at the National Gallery of Canada by artists who had been recipients of the award in the previous decade. Up until her death, Saidye Bronfman was Honorary President of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation.
