The Breavmans founded and presided over most of the institutions which make the Montreal Jewish community one of the most powerful in the world today.
The joke around the city is: The Jews are the conscience of the world and the Breavmans are the conscience of the Jews. “And I am the conscience of the Breavmans,” adds Lawrence Breavman. “Actually we are the only Jews left; that is, super-Christians, first citizens with cut prongs.”
The feeling today, if anyone troubles himself to articulate it, is that the Breavmans are in a decline. “Be careful,” Lawrence Breavman warns his executive cousins, “or your children will speak with accents.”
Ten years ago Breavman compiled the Code of Breavman:
We are Victorian gentlemen of Hebraic persuasion.
We cannot be positive, but we are fairly certain that any other Jews with money got it on the black market.
We do not wish to join Christian clubs or weaken our blood through inter-marriage. We wish to be regarded as peers, united by class, education, power, differentiated by home rituals.
We refuse to pass the circumcision line.
We were civilized first and drink less, you lousy bunch of bloodthirsty drunks.