Larry Zolf: A brief, irreverent history of the Red Chamber

Published: December 17, 2007, 5:07 pm

In 1984, I published Survival of the Fattest: An Irreverent View of the Senate. My book dealt with all the bagmen, tycoons and scandals that went hand-in-hand with the corporate nature of Senate membership. But above all, Survival of the Fattest addressed the question that my father, in the 1940s, asked in his Yiddish class:Why were there no Jewish Senators? In the 1940s, there was only one prominent Canadian Jew who wanted a Senate seat badly. That was Samuel Bronfman, president and CEO of Seagram Whisky and the Canadian Jewish Congress. Mr. Sam, as he was known, was seeking the legitimacy of the Senate chamber to remove the taint of his alleged underworld connections. For years, the Bronfmans and their criminal associates had been illegally pouring whisky down the throats of millions of Canadians. Bronfman had also poured millions of dollars into Liberal party coffers. Still, the Liberals said no to him. Finally, an angry Bronfman descended upon Liberal minister

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