Bronfman Sisters Named As Members Of Shadowy Group That Branded Women
Two daughters of the late philanthropist Edgar Bronfman were named in a New York Times investigative story about a shadowy upstate New York group in which female members were branded to enforce loyalty to its leader.
It was unclear if Sara and Clare Bronfman underwent the painful procedure that burned a symbol into the bodies of some members of the group, known as Nxivm.
Sara Bronfman, 41, has reportedly poured millions of her family’s fortune into the group. Clare Bronfman, an accomplished equestrian, also ran programs for Nxivm.
The sisters’ involvement in the group led by a self-proclaimed self-help guru named Keith Raniere was revealed by a blog started by a Buffalo businessman whom they sued and who is facing federal fraud charges, the Times reported.
Other members of the group described it as a sort of human bondage pyramid scheme in which members swore loyalty to a “master” and handed over embarrassing information or photos that would be released if they ever tried to leave the group.
Members were then allowed to recruit new members as their own “slaves.” New members were taken to a secret location near Albany where they agreed to undergo the branding process.
No criminal charges have been filed against leaders or members of the group, and state medical officials ruled the procedures were voluntary, the paper said.
Sara and Clare Bronfman are the youngest daughters of Edgar Bronfman Sr., a legendary figure in the Jewish communal world who died in 2013.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO