The World Jewish Congress (EJP) on Sunday mourned the passing of its long-time president Edgar Bronfman, who died on Saturday in New York at the age of 84.
Bronfman served as president of the World Jewish Congress from 1979 to 2007. His successor as WJC President, Ronald S. Lauder, called him “one of the great Jewish leaders of the past decades.”
He devoted much of his life to advocating for Judaism and Jewish causes. He traveled to the Soviet Union in 1970 to lobby for greater freedom for Jews living there and helped to win restitution for Holocaust victims from Swiss banks in 1997. President Bill Clinton awarded Bronfman the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1999.
“Many Jews around the world are better off today because of Edgar’s determined, unrelenting fight for justice on their behalf. His name will forever be enshrined in the history books. He not only turned the World Jewish Congress into the preeminent international Jewish organization that it still is today and broadened its base by bringing in new member communities in Eastern Europe and other countries,’’ Lauder said.
He said he was also one of the architects of the liberation of Soviet Jewry. ‘’His tenacity secured a small measure of justice for the victims of the Holocaust, and their heirs. He enlisted successive Administrations in Washington in the fight for restitution and compensation from more than a dozen European countries, and without him, there would today be no Swiss banks settlement,’’ Lauder added.
The son of Canadian liquor mogul Samuel Bronfman, he became chairman and CEO of the Seagram Company in 1971.
He was also a noted philanthropist who has given large amounts of money to Jewish causes, including Hillel, The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life.
He established the Bronfman Youth Fellowships in Israel, a leadership program for Jewish youth, and was the founder of the website MyJewishLearning.com.