Tag Archives: Canadian Jews

Jew of the Week: Seymour Schulich

Mr. Schulich

Seymour Schulich (b. 1940) A science and engineering major from Montreal, he made most of his fortune in the oil and mining industries, primarily by inventing a new system of royalty payments. Schulich is often considered Canada’s top investor, as well as Canada’s greatest philanthropist. He recently donated $100 million to fund scholarships for university students through the United Jewish Appeal. This is in addition to $250 million he has already donated over the course of his life to various schools, hospitals and charities. It is therefore not surprising that he is the namesake for many institutions, including York’s Schulich School of Business, Western’s Schulich School of Medicine, Calgary’s Schulich School of Engineering, Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law, McGill’s Schulich School of Music, Sunnybrook’s Schulich Heart Centre, and Technion’s Schulich Faculty of Chemistry. He has received the Order of Canada.

Words of the Week

Most men worry about their own bellies and other people’s souls, when we all ought to be worried about our own souls and other people’s bellies.
– Rabbi Israel Salanter

Jews of the Week: Rosenbergs, Baskin and Robbins

Dunkin Donuts & Baskin Robbins

Will Rosenberg – Mr. Dunkin’ Donuts

William Rosenberg (1916-2002) was born to a Jewish family in Boston. Because of the Great Depression, Rosenberg dropped out of school in eighth grade to work. After World War II, he invented the now-famous stainless steel “canteen trucks” seen on construction sites, and started a food delivery business with just $2500. Realizing that most of his sales were in coffee and donuts, Rosenberg opened Dunkin’ Donuts in 1950. At the time, only four flavours of donuts were available. Rosenberg created 52! He became one of the pioneers of franchising, founding the International Franchise Association in 1960. Today, Dunkin’ Donuts has over 9,700 franchises in 37 countries.

Baskin & Robbins

In the 1960s, his son Robert Rosenberg acquired Baskin Robbins. This company was originally started by Canadian Jew Irvine Robbins (1917-2008), who used his bar mitzvah money after coming back from World War II. It was a merger of his ice cream shop with his brother-in-law’s Burt Baskin (1913-1967), a member of Zeta Beta Tau, America’s first Jewish fraternity. Some consider Baskin Robbins the first-ever food franchise. Today, it has nearly 6,000 locations worldwide.

 

Words of the Week

Money is the cause of good things to a good man, of evil things to a bad man.
– Philo Judaeus

Jew of the Week: Frank Dux

The Real Van Damme

Frank Dux – the one who inspired the movie which inspired a generation

Born to Holocaust survivors in Toronto, Frank Dux (b. 1956) started studying martial arts at an early age. Moving to California, he caught the eye of such warrior greats as Senzo Tanaka and Bruce Lee. These connections bought him an invitation to the Kumite, a secret once-in-five-years fighting mega event. Because the Kumite’s existence has never been confirmed, Dux’s story is an incredibly controversial one. Regardless, his story was dramatized in the movie Bloodsport, which happened to be the first film to star a certain Jean-Claude Van Damme, who subsequently rose to action movie super-stardom. Interestingly, most of Van Damme’s films have been produced by an Israeli: Moshe Diamant. When asked about this, the Muscles from Brussels replied: “It’s destiny. Israelis like to take chances. I’m a Belgian guy with an accent, and they took a chance with me.”

Words of the Week

Our sages have said, “Sleep is one sixtieth of death” (Talmud, Brachot 57b). If sleep is a form of death, then death is a form of sleep – a temporary withdrawal of vitality for the sake of reawakening to a higher quality of life.
– The Lubavitcher Rebbe