On February 24, I published Find IDF Soldiers, a database containing profiles of 85 Canadians that have joined the Israeli military at any point in their lives.
Several people in the database and/or their family members have since reacted to it online, including by speaking with a variety of news outlets. I’ve compiled these reactions here, sorted by name in alphabetical order.
Some of these comments will be added to the Find IDF Soldiers website the next time it is updated.
Shai DeLuca
From The Canadian Jewish News: “‘Jews… once something like this happens, the WhatsApp group comes together, and all of a sudden I was added to this WhatsApp group of people who are on this list,’ [DeLuca] said.
‘There’s nothing in these lists that we are embarrassed of, or that we are ashamed of.’
He notes that his social media profiles mention he served in the IDF.
‘What did you find out? What did you prove? What in our mentality did you show? That we’re proud of who we are, that we’re proud that we’re able to defend ourselves, that we’re proud that we adhere to the law in the country that we are a citizen of? What did you prove? Nothing.
‘It was literally a list of Jews. That’s all it was. Good for you, you put a list of Jews together. That’s what you did. Like the SS.’
DeLuca, who had already been in contact with his lawyer from the Foodbenders case after the list was published, confirmed he would be open to joining any potential legal action if launched—and that he had been contacted about potentially joining such cases.
‘If my name and being a part of it would help combat this publication, and what this man did, of course I would, absolutely.’
The Maple’s editor was ‘very smart legally,’ DeLuca says, by adding disclaimers: ‘This was not for doxxing. All of the information I found was online. I’m just putting a list together.’
‘If the point of it was not to doxx,’ DeLuca says, or to claim that any of the Canadians who served that were named had done wrong, ‘[then] what exactly is the point of this list?
‘There was no point other than to create a list of Jews.’
He’s skeptical the project seeks to understand anyone’s motivations for serving in the IDF: Mastracci never contacted him directly.
DeLuca says there’s never a good reason to make a list of Jews.
‘There’s a very dark history with that. People think it’s only the Holocaust—it’s not only the Holocaust…It was during the Spanish Inquisition, it was any time there was a need to round up Jews, lists were made. So Jews and lists—not a good thing.’”
From the Jewish News Syndicate: “Shai DeLuca described the site’s project on social media as an ‘SS-style hit list.’
The Maple ‘literally just put together a list of Jews,’ he told JNS. ‘This is why I call it the SS list, because, other than that, what was the purpose, if it wasn’t to dox or if it wasn’t to say that these people did something wrong?’
DeLuca, who is a designer with a large following on social media, is a former IDF combat engineer of three years who dismantled munitions in minefields and took apart explosives. He was in Israel during Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attacks and returned to Canada that day on the last flight. He told JNS that he wasn’t surprised by the list.
‘I looked up the Maple and saw some antisemitism. Do you even call them articles? Excuse me, but no,’ he said. ‘Sadly, I think that this is what Canada has become, so I would have been more surprised had it not happened.’”
Israel Ellis (father of Eitan Ellis)
From The Canadian Jewish News: “Israel Ellis immediately reacted to the website with a mixture concern and fury when he learned his IDF reservist son Eitan Ellis was highlighted, along with other soldiers they know. [...] ‘“How do we get this thing shut down as quickly as possible?” That took me on a bit of a journey,’ he said, and was soon contacting ‘every politician I know’—and law enforcement officials, too.
‘Many people were talking, and by the morning the site was shut down.’ (Ellis spoke with The CJN before it was restored.)
Ellis confirmed that several families of the named soldiers had been in communication since the list was published, and were exploring options for a legal response to The Maple.
‘We are now gaining legal opinions [on whether] to launch a class-action lawsuit, and we are looking at our legal avenues to see what we can do to create a case, to create damages,’ said Ellis. ‘We’d like to shut down the entire operation.’
That said, it’s difficult to prove there was a negative intent behind the site.
‘The problem is that Canada does not have laws that cover this. It is an uphill battle to prove intent to harm. There is a risk to launching a legal action that gets dismissed as it will cause to validate [the database project].’
‘But obviously when you look at all of this, the intent is to intimidate, to cause fear, and to put these people that are mentioned on that site in harm’s way, because they are in harm’s way,’ said Ellis, who was speaking to community organizers and soliciting legal opinions, and had sought to launch a complaint with Toronto Police Services.
‘There may be an opportunity for people to demand that their names not be published publicly, as social media is not intended for that type of consumption,’ he added later via email. [...]
According to Ellis, the database author was ‘extremely strategic’ to avoid crossing the line into libellous territory. He says Mastracci created an ‘aggregate’ of public information, and while he realizes the publication isn’t illegal per se, the list of names provides ‘the haters and the lovers of death… supporters of Hamas, with bread crumbs to the people that have been involved.’
Someone could commit a random, violent act against one of the listed Canadians, says Ellis, adding that many post-service IDF soldiers’ trauma involves, specifically, fear of an unexpected, sudden attack.
The intent behind the list is ‘insidious’ he says, because ‘that person’s intent [is] not to be a public provider of information, but rather the purpose of him publishing that is to intimidate, to create fear, and cause harm, and put my kid at risk… He [Mastracci] knows exactly what he’s doing.’
By making the list public and encouraging readers to report new tips, ‘there is no question about it,’ says Ellis. ‘It is a hunting exercise.’”
From the Jewish News Syndicate: “Israel Ellis, whose son Eitan Ellis is an Israeli soldier who is currently serving, told JNS that he is angry as a parent ‘that someone would put my son in harm’s way, intentionally.’ (JNS sought comment from Mastracci.)
‘That’s my first emotion,’ he said. ‘This guy’s not aggregating public information as a community service. He’s not doing it because he wants to help the community, right?’ The point of the article, he thinks, ‘is to intimidate, to create fear and to cause harm.’
‘He’s essentially hunting IDF soldiers,’ Ellis told JNS, and he blames the Canadian government in part, due to what he calls its ‘apathy and complicity.’
‘They have not defined legislatively and judicially what hate law is today, and what is incitement to hatred,’ he said.”
Rebecca Garner
From the National Post: “Garner, who served in the IDF from 2011 to 2014 in a combat role, said she thought it was a ‘pretty clear expression of hatred for Jews.’
‘The Canadian Jews on this list are quite possibly the most unflappable members of our Jewish community. I don’t think we’ll be intimidated by it, if that’s the intention. I don’t think it’s an acceptable thing to happen in Canada,’ she told the National Post over the phone on Wednesday morning.”
Garner was born and raised in Canada. She felt motivated to join the IDF to pay tribute to her grandparents, who were survivors of the Holocaust. She said she saw the need ‘for young Jews to protect the Jewish homeland.’
‘I think there’s a pretty dark historical precedent for making lists of Jews. That’s what it immediately reminded me of,’ she said. ‘A database of Jews.’”
Leah Goldstein
From the Jewish News Syndicate: “Leah Goldstein, a former IDF Krav Maga instructor and former member of the Israeli police force, told JNS that if The Maple really wanted balance, ‘where is the list of the Hamas supporters, or people that support radical Islam?’
Jew-hatred has ‘always been around,’ and this Maple was ‘just giving them an excuse now to come out of their hiding place,’ she said.
‘There’s no way I’m going to hide who I am. I’m not afraid,’ she told JNS. ‘His purpose is to put all 85 of us in danger.’
‘You got to catch things when it’s young and early and squash it, so he’ll think three times before he writes any stupidity again,’ she added. ‘I think it is good to attack it and make him feel small. There’s no point in silence.’”
From the National Post: “Goldstein, 56, told the National Post in a phone interview on Wednesday that she was ‘not at all’ intimidated by the list. She lived in Israel from the age of 17 until she was 32 years old. Because of her experience as a world champion kickboxer, she became the head of instruction for Krav Maga, the system of fighting for soldiers, for the IDF, she said. [...]
While the list does not intimidate Goldstein, she said she’s not sure why it was created.
‘I’m not going to hide under a rock. It’s who I am,’ she said. ‘I’m proud of my service and there’s no way I’ll hide it. But to put us out there, it feels like it is a bit targeted. What’s the purpose of that?’”
From the Vernon Morning Star: “Vernon’s Leah Goldstein is questioning the motive behind a list of 85 Jewish Canadians who have served in the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF), recently published by a left-wing activist media publication. [...] Goldstein is proud of her military service and makes no effort to hide it. [...] Goldstein said she found out she was on the list when she was contacted by a news reporter. She said while she doesn’t feel threatened or intimidated by being put on the list, it’s caused fear for her parents.
Goldstein said the list is putting a target on the back of Jewish Canadians by linking them to the current Israeli government and its bitter conflict with Hamas, which has led to severe and lengthy bombing campaigns that have killed thousands of Palestinians. She points to The Maple’s framing of the article, which starts off by accusing the Israeli military of ‘ethnic cleansing, war crimes, apartheid and now genocide’ before presenting its list of former IDF members.
‘It just feels obviously targeted,’ Goldstein said.”
Noy Leyb
From Israel Hayom: “Noy Leyb, originally from Calgary, is one of the Canadian-Israelis featured on this list. He told us that, ‘this isn't the first time I was featured online by anti-Israel pages, but this is going beyond what is normal. They included my brothers in the website and just used language that is clearly biased, making me look like a genocide killer.’ Leyb added, ‘I am a proud soldier and won’t hide my face but when it comes to my family, that is when I get upset and angry.’”
From the Jewish News Syndicate: “Noy Leyb, of Calgary, who spent three years as an Israeli paratrooper and left the army as a first sergeant, told JNS that he has been a reservist in Unit 551, a special forces group and wasn’t surprised to be listed.
‘I knew that my face would end up on a page like this,’ he said. ‘What surprised me was the language they used, the way they shaped us IDF soldiers and how non-human they made us look.’
‘We are moral and ethical soldiers,’ he told JNS. ‘Not monsters like Hamas.’
Leyb isn’t afraid, but he is alert after receiving ‘a ton’ of threats on social media. ‘It doesn’t faze me,’ he said.”
Moshe Tzvi Shapiro
An excerpt from an article by Shapiro in Jew In The City: “A week ago, I found out I had made a list. Not a list of honors or achievements, but a list of Canadian-Israeli soldiers, published in an article that has been widely condemned as a hit piece against Jews from Canada who chose to serve in the IDF. Many people responded as expected—condemning the article, calling out the blatant targeting of Jews, and vowing not to be intimidated by those who seek to make us hide.
And they’re right. We must never cower in the face of those who try to make us fearful of our identity. We must fight back against antisemitism and make it clear that we will not be silenced.
But as much as I agree with those sentiments, I think they have been repeated almost daily since the start of the war due to the massive uptick in antisemitism. I don’t think it’s what people need to hear, and I don’t think the goal of the author of the article is to silence us; at least, I don’t think it’s the end goal.
I didn’t end up on this list because I am Israeli. I was put on this list because I am a Jew from outside of Israel who refused to stay away—especially when my people needed me. If being on this list means anything, it means that even though it wasn’t the easiest, most natural path for me, I made a decision. I chose to place my destiny with the destiny of my people.”
From the Jewish News Syndicate: “Moshe Tzvi Shapiro told JNS that when he first saw himself on the list, he was shocked ‘that there are people who are so blind to reality.’
‘To dox people who literally put their lives on the line to protect not just Israel, but the world from terrorism, is insane,’ he said.
‘Unlike our enemies, none of us has any interest in hurting a fly,’ he told JNS. ‘We volunteered to fight because we know it’s the right thing to do. Because, as everyone in Israel is aware, in the aftermath of the horrific events of a year and a half ago, and as tensions rise on all the borders around us and in Judea and Samaria, there are more and more fronts, and less and less soldiers to fill them.’
‘If we weren’t there,’ he added, ‘I don’t know who would.’”
Gil Troy (father of Aviv Troy, Dina Troy, Lia Troy, Yoni Troy)
From the Jerusalem Post: “In the holiday’s spirit, as Hamas’s Hamans set the moral tone on campus and on social media, my oldest, now renamed ‘War Criminal No. 1,’ boasted that her profile ‘is quite complimentary,’ even while noting that this database of only 85 people makes it look ‘fake.’ She chuckled: ‘They don’t seem competent.’
War Criminal No. 4-in-law noted that War Criminal No. 2 was the first one quoted in the article accompanying the list. According to the article, WC No. 2 said in 2019: ‘I always dreamed of serving as an officer.’
He responded: ‘Cool!’
War Criminal No. 1 added that the website included ‘nice quotes about us from Dad’s articles. Looks like someone is a fan of Professor Troy.’
War Criminal No. 2 responded, ‘Yeah, they seem really sweet actually.’ He then posted on the site: ‘Thank you for adding me to your ridiculous website.’
He explained: ‘I really am proud of who I am and what I’ve done. Happy to fight for my country and defend against barbaric terrorists like Hamas who rape, pillage, and murder innocent men, women, children, and babies.
‘Happy to be added to your database of heroes willing to risk their lives for innocents and fight evil in all the ways it manifests.
‘Our fight is for truth and justice. Hoping that one day every country in the Middle East is as democratic, diverse, open to LGBTQ+, feminist, modern and woke as Israel!’”
Member discussion