Meet 85 Canadians That Have Fought For Israel

For the better part of the past century, some Jews in Canada have been travelling to Israel to fight alongside other Jewish Zionists from around the world.

Throughout this time, the Israeli military has been credibly accused by and/or before major international bodies of ethnic cleansing, war crimes, apartheid, and now genocide. Israeli soldiers have also provided the physical force necessary to uphold practices the Canadian government has condemned, such as the occupation of the West Bank and the creation of new settlements. Despite this, the Canadian government has shown no interest in making it illegal for its citizens to join the Israeli military, preventing them from doing so or even keeping track of them.

There is little existing research in Canada beyond one-off news articles about who these soldiers are and how they came to make the life choices that they did. As such, I created a database of mini-profiles for as many Canadians that have fought in the Israeli military at any point as I could find. The resulting project, Find IDF Soldiers, was published this month, and offers the most comprehensive online public database of Canadians that have joined the Israeli military. This project defines “Canadian” as someone who is a Canadian citizen, and/or has lived in Canada for a significant amount of time, and/or currently lives in Canada.  

The level of detail for each of the 85 profiles included varied based on what was publicly available, but the goal was to identify: where each soldier was born and grew up, what schools and institutions they attended, when they joined the Israeli military and why, if their participation was encouraged by family members and social networks, what they did in the military and what they’ve had to say about it, and what they’ve done since. 

Every profile was based entirely on information gathered through simple Google searches from news articles, social media profiles, newsletters, websites, public directories and other sources. If you’d like to check out these profiles and a full list of the names of the soldiers, you can do so now at the website I created for the project.

This article draws upon the research I conducted to create the profiles and offers some of the trends I discovered to help provide a better understanding of the average Canadian Israeli military member. 

But first, a few disclaimers. 

1) The quotes and views from soldiers presented here are included solely to help readers understand why they made their decisions. Other members of the Jewish community may disagree with the soldiers’ interpretation of Judaism and views on the Israeli military. 

2) We’re not accusing these soldiers of having violated any Canadian law or participated in Israeli military crimes. 

3) While this project is the most comprehensive online public database of Canadians that have joined the Israeli military, it only amounts to offering limited information on what is likely a fraction of the overall number that have done so, given that most are not public about their participation. As such, the findings I discovered by examining this group of soldiers may not necessarily reflect what an examination of all lone soldiers from Canada would find. 

However, this project is an ongoing one, so tips about other Canadians that have joined the Israeli military at any point can be sent to us.

The Average Lone Soldier

The average lone soldier from Canada in this database is a white Jewish man born and raised in Canada who immigrated to Israel in their late teens with the express purpose of joining its military. 

The soldier is most likely to have grown up in a Greater Toronto Area neighbourhood with a larger-than-average proportion of Jewish residents in what they’d describe as a Zionist household. They will usually have attended a private Jewish school at the elementary and/or high school level, and had some involvement in other aspects of the community (such as attending a synagogue and Jewish summer camps). 

The soldier will have been exposed to the idea of becoming an Israeli military soldier at one or all of these institutions, including through school curriculum, talks held at synagogues and exchange programs with Israel. They will have seen past lone soldiers from their community celebrated by these institutions and respected by the people around them. 

The soldier will usually have decided to take this life path by the age of 16, at the latest. They generally make this decision because they see it as an expression of Judaism and/or their Jewish identity more broadly, and in some cases see it as a necessary step in becoming a real member of a society they feel is their true home. 

Based on public statements, their parents, who are likely to be white collar professionals, may initially be hesitant about their choice, but not because of the Israeli military’s conduct. Instead, it will be because of a concern that their child could get hurt or killed, and perhaps an urge to see them attend university before doing anything else. Eventually, their parents will almost always be on board, expressing pride in them and seeing them as doing a service for Jewish people around the world.

The soldier will immigrate to Israel immediately after high school with the aid of one or more organizations dedicated to this purpose. They will spend time in an Israeli yeshiva or mechinot program (pre-military training for high school graduates) prior to enlisting. They will eventually be drafted, most likely into an infantry unit.

They will see their service, which will last at least 18 months, as a place for personal growth and development. They will express dealing with some challenges, such as loneliness, but ultimately see this period of their life as a positive one. 

After finishing their service, they will most likely go to university in Israel or Canada. If they choose to attend an Israeli university, they will likely stay in Israel for good. 

The soldier will also likely talk approvingly about their experience at some point, either to news outlets, at special events hosted at synagogues or community centres, or through organizations created with the specific purpose of having former lone soldiers help recruit new ones. 

The cycle will continue. 

Demographics and Stats

All of the 85 soldiers I identified were at least partially Jewish. This is not a surprise given that Jews are the only people with the ability to immigrate to Israel as citizens based solely on their ethnoreligious background. 

Jewish men were overrepresented in the database: 64 of the soldiers were men (75 per cent) while 21 were women (25 per cent).

The majority of the soldiers (67) were born in Canada and immigrated to Israel later in their lives. Another 12 were born in Israel, but 10 of those 12 grew up in Canada and only went back to Israel later. The birthplaces of the remaining six were either unknown (three) or in Mexico, the United States, or the United Kingdom (one in each country).

The majority of the profiles that detail how the soldiers grew up indicate or state that they were immersed in the Jewish community. For example, of the 34 profiles where I was able to identify where the future soldiers went to school, 32 (94 per cent) attended private Jewish schools for elementary and/or high school, while just two solely attended public schools. 

This may be an indicator that they come from well-off families. For example, the most commonly attended elementary school among the soldiers currently has an annual tuition of either $18,450 or $19,500 depending on the grade, while the two most-common high schools had annual tuitions of $24,000 in 2017 and $23,900 as of 2024, respectively. 

Many of the soldiers also described attending Jewish summer camps, synagogues with some frequency (including a few cases where a member of the soldier’s family or the soldier themselves was either a rabbi, founded the synagogue or held an administrative role there), and yeshivas.

Finally, the overwhelming majority of the soldiers immigrated to Israel immediately after high school, or at the very latest within the next two to three years. This is significant given that those who immigrate after they turn 22 can be exempt from military service, while almost all others are required to complete it. The majority of the soldiers in this database, however, stated that they wanted to join the military — it was not just something they had to do in order to live in Israel.

I found that around 33 of the soldiers in the database remained in Israel permanently after their service, while the others either returned to Canada soon after or within a few years, or are still in the midst of their service. 

The Soldiers Speak

A significant number of the soldiers told news outlets and others that they wanted to join the Israeli military from a young age, sometimes framing it as a lifelong dream. For example:

• In 2019, Yoni Troy wrote, “I always dreamed of serving as an officer.”
  
  
• In 2010, Shar Leyb told The Canadian Jewish News, “I’ve wanted to go into the [Israeli army] since I was very young.”
  
  
• In July 2017, according to the National Post, Lionel Kalles said on Facebook: “Since I was young the IDF has been the only thing I think about, day and night.”
  
  
• In a 2018 interview with The Canadian Jewish News, Shai DeLuca said, “From the age of 15, I knew that, at 18, I’d go do my army service in Israel.”
  
  
• In a 2013 interview with The Canadian Jewish News, Oren Rittenberg’s mother, Nira Rittenberg, said, “It was something he said he’d do since Grade 9.”
  
  
• At a May 2024 ceremony for Israeli soldiers that had been killed, the late Ben Mizrahi’s mother, Dikla Mizrahi, said, “He had his mind set that, after high school, he would go to Israel and learn in a pre-army Mechina program to prepare him for the IDF. He couldn’t imagine himself doing anything else.”
  
  
• In 2018, The Times of Israel reported that joining the Israeli military had been Bayli Dukes’s “dream from the age of 12.”
  
  
• In 2020, The Canadian Jewish News reported that after his Bar Mitzvah in Israel, Robbie Kohos “began hatching a plan to enter the IDF after high school.”

Some of these soldiers said this dream was inspired by family members that had previously served in the Israeli military or urged them to do so

• In a 2018 interview with The Canadian Jewish News, Shai DeLuca said, “The matriarch of my family, my grandma, and I had a very special relationship. She always said that if she’d had the opportunity, she would’ve gone to Israel. She talked a lot about the importance of defending our homeland. This was really strongly instilled in me.”
  
  
• In March 2023, the now deceased Yisroel Eliyahu Suissa told Chayal el Chayal, “Two of my brothers served before me which gave me the connection I have now to the cause, and motivated me to draft to the army.”
  
  
• In 2010, Shar Leyb told The Canadian Jewish News, “My dad was an officer in the IDF for five years. My brother’s in the army… I remember my grandpa did it, my cousin did it.”
  
  
• In 2024, Benjamin Philip told CTech that he was “deeply influenced” to join the Israeli military by his brother, Eden Philip.
  
  
• In a 2023 interview with the Jewish Independent, Michael Starr said, “I grew up in a religious and Zionist household, and Israel was a large part of my cultural heritage [...] My grandmother was born in Israel and my grandfather served in the Haganah and IDF.”

Other soldiers noted that they’d been influenced to join the military in part because of experiences they’d had in their Jewish schools, synagogues, summer camps and communities more broadly.

• In 2017, Elliot Wine told The Canadian Jewish News, “I grew up going to a Zionist Jewish day school, and a Zionist synagogue weekly, and support for Israel and the Jewish homeland was infused into my daily life. When I met an Israeli soldier for the first time at the age of 14, I was sold. I can’t tell you what his job or name was, nor where he was in the army. All I saw was the green uniform, and I was hooked from then on.”
  
  
• In 2014, Leor Mann authored an article for Reform Judaism titled, “How Jewish Summer Camp Prepared Me for the Israeli Army,” where he wrote, “The second major influence in my decision to join the IDF was my experience at URJ Camp George.”
  
  
• In a February 2024 My Israel Narrative interview, Aby Volcovich stated, “I grew up in Canada in a very Zionist upbringing, a very strong connection to Israel, always going to UJA ‘Walk With Israel.’”
  
  
• In 2021, Ayala Rotenberg told Haaretz, “In school we celebrated every Independence Day and every Memorial Day. And it’s crazy to see kids who don’t actually know any soldiers crying on Memorial Day; who are they crying for? But you feel that it’s a family, that it’s really ours.”
  
  
• In 2017, Eitan Ellis told The Canadian Jewish News, “I would always go to shul with my parents, and at the end of the service, there would be a prayer for the State of Israel. I thought it was a nice thing, but something always bothered me about that. Everyone always says, ‘I love Israel, let’s say a prayer for them,’ but I never really felt like that was enough.”
  
  
• In a 2024 podcast, Rabbi Daniel Korobkin told The Canadian Jewish News that Benjamin Brown and Zachary Brown joining the Israeli military was a “natural outcome” of the education they received at their Jewish schools.
  
  
• World Mizrachi reported that Yehuda Bessner “grew up in Montreal, where he was a Bnei Akiva madrich and was inspired by his teachers to make Aliyah.”

Many of the soldiers also saw joining the Israeli military as an expression of Judaism and/or their Jewish identity.

• In 2008, Natasha Barnston told the Jerusalem Post, “I think all Jews should serve, or at least volunteer to serve, in the IDF. It’s just something we have to do. It’s not a question. All Jews are obligated to go into the army of the Jewish nation.”
  
  
• In a 2024 podcast interview, Nir Maman told The Canadian Jewish News that fighting in Gaza has made him “more connected to our religion, to our roots, to our purpose.”
  
  
• In 2019, the CBC reported that Yonah Morrison said fighting in the Israeli military was a way of “protecting his heritage.”
  
  
• The Canadian Jewish News reported that in a 2023 letter to his mother, Eden Philip wrote, “We should all be making this effort whether it be with a weapon in our hand, with a pen in our desk, with the letters on our keyboards. Each of us can do more. Each of us has a part to play in the history of the Jewish people.”
  
  
• “If you don’t believe that this will succeed, then you don’t believe that you see a tomorrow for future generations of Israel, of Jews, of your brothers and sisters,” Temima Silver said about the war in Gaza in a 2023 interview with the Canadian Press.
  
  
• In a February 2024 My Israel Narrative interview, Aby Volcovich said, “The Jewish values that we really believe in, I believe that the IDF is really going and doing those values.” He added, “Growing up very Zionist, and very connected to my Jewish identity, just made it make a lot of sense to make that decision [joining the Israeli military].”

And beyond this, some of the soldiers stated that they felt like Israel was their real home, sometimes even before living or immigrating there.

• In 2019, the CBC reported that Yonah Morrison, who immigrated to Israel after high school, said, “I always considered Israel to be my home [...] I don’t see why I shouldn’t have to serve, just because I was born somewhere else.”
  
  
• In a 2018 article in The Times of Israel, Jeremy Urbach, who immigrated to Israel after finishing his undergraduate degree, wrote that in his early teens he “made it my responsibility to learn about my homeland and all it has to offer.”
  
  
• In a 2018 interview with The Canadian Jewish News, Shai DeLuca said, “[His military service was a] way for me to give back to what I consider my homeland in the fullest way I could imagine.”
  
  
• In a 2024 interview, Isabelle (Isy) Burke told The Australian Jewish News, “[Canada] wasn’t my home because of the people and Israel is my home. I tell everybody that when I went to Israel, I finally felt safe in a country that you shouldn’t feel so safe in, but it is my safe place.”
  
  
• In 2021, Ayala Rotenberg told Haaretz, “After my education was paid for and I also received a monthly allowance, I didn’t feel right about just walking away. I was given so much, and now it’s my turn to give to Israel, to our country.”
  
  
• In a 2021 podcast interview at The Canadian Jewish News, Zachary Brown said, “Israel is my home; Toronto is a place I visit.”
  
  
• In 2014, the National Post reported that Orli Broer said she feels a “deeper connection” with Israel than Canada, adding, “It’s my home and I have to protect my home.”

These soldiers also generally received support from their parents for their decision (although it’s possible that parents who may not have supported the decision would refrain from stating this publicly, meaning the impressions I got from creating the profiles could be skewed). 

•  “I’m proud, very proud. It’s amazing,” said Natasha Barnston’s mother, Ellie Stern, in a 2008 interview with the Jerusalem Post.
  
  
• “Yes, being the parent of an IDF soldier is most stressful—but there’s another side. There’s a sense that we, as parents, we did something to give him this fire, this purpose. It’s in our DNA, a connection deep within us from biblical times. And while my heart is in my throat, I also feel a powerful pride—not something to wear on my sleeve, but a deep knowingness that this is my child, a protector of our people,” Israel Ellis, the father of Eitan Ellis, wrote in a 2024 Substack article.
  
  
• “I am in awe of his moral compass and am extremely proud of him,” Zev Faintuch’s mother, Shelley Faintuch, wrote for the Jewish Foundation of Manitoba’s website.
  
  
• “To choose to go to the army, follow certain rules, being under strict conduct, takes a lot of courage. I’m proud of my two boys that that was their choice,” said Galia Philip of her sons Benjamin Philip and Eden Philip in a 2024 CTech interview.
  
  
• Rebecca Shapiro, the mother of Moshe Tzvi Shapiro, wrote in a 2024 Hamilton Jewish News article: “When my two sons decided to join the Israeli army, I was slightly hesitant but optimistically thought that it would be a great experience for them. They would learn discipline, make great friends and protect our homeland.”

Not all of the parents mentioned in the database were initially on board with their child’s decision. However, none of them were quoted as mentioning issues with the conduct of the Israeli military as their reason for hesitation. Instead, they generally stated that they didn’t want their child to risk being killed or that they’d prefer for them to go to university instead and potentially immigrate to Israel later on if they still wanted to. 

For example, Orli Broer’s mother, Audrey Shecter, told The Canadian Jewish News in 2014, “She is wearing the uniform of the country, and as far as I’m concerned, that makes her a target. And she’s living on a base in the West Bank, so who knows what can happen?”

Others felt like their children didn’t actually need to live in Israel to support the state.

Reflecting On Their Service

Many of the profiles included in this database contain references to interviews conducted with the soldiers after they finished their service. Some of these soldiers offered general thoughts on their service, including what it was like for them, if they’d do it again and how they felt about Israel and its military at the time of the interview.

I found just one case of a soldier explicitly stating that they now saw their service in the military as contributing to the oppression of Palestinians. Itai Erdal, who was born and raised in Israel and only moved to Canada much later, said in a 2023 interview, “When I was in the army, I felt like I was doing the right thing [...] Like my mother said, ‘If you go, you can be kind to people.’ And so I thought I would be the one soldier who’s gonna be nice to everyone. And only when I was there I realized all that people see when they see me is a guy in a uniform with a gun. They don’t know that I’m nice. They don’t care if I’m for them. I’m still oppressing them! They don’t care if I’m conflicted about what I’m doing. I’m still the person who’s stopping their life from being normal. [...] Only after years of living in Canada, it became so clear to me that what I did was wrong.”

Other soldiers that had issues with their service generally cited different concerns. One of the most common was a feeling of loneliness or homesickness. Another was difficulty adjusting to Israeli society. 

At the same time, many soldiers and/or their parents also claimed they were revered by born-and-raised Israelis in the army (many of whom didn’t understand why they’d leave Western countries), as well as others outside of it. Some cited having their groceries paid for by strangers, or people stopping them in the street to praise them for their service, particularly upon discovering that they were lone soldiers. The soldiers also often pointed to lone soldier organizations helping to make their service more comfortable, and eventually giving them a sense of a social life that made everything easier.

A few of the soldiers did express some discomfort with what they witnessed or did while on duty, though they generally managed to reconcile it with their view of the military as a positive force.

For example, in a June 2024 Medium post about his service in Gaza, Barr Solnik wrote,  “As a Jew, the image of little children’s shoes abandoned and grayed from ash is a hard one to bear. There’s an uncomfortable familiarity. My mind replaces the image before my eyes with one of similar abandoned belongings from another place and time. Poland, Germany, and other European countries were the centers of displacement, mass incarceration, forced labor, and the systematic extermination of millions of our people. Some of the most notorious concentration camps include Auschwitz-Birkenau, Dachau, and Majdanek. Yet here I am, in the land of Israel, the home of the Jewish people, and also the residence of our not-so-distant cousins. This time, we are the ones pushing people out of their homes.”

Yet as the article progresses, Solnik rationalizes his service. He writes that “sometimes the children themselves pose a very real and immediate threat to me and my family,” and, “From feelings of sadness, I cannot help but move towards feelings of hate — not because they have tried and succeeded in murdering some of my people, but because there is no sign, not a single one, of a desire for a better, more collaborative, peaceful world.”

Meanwhile, in a December 2024 article in the Jerusalem Post, Michael Starr describes killing a “young man” in Gaza who “couldn’t have been much older than 18.” Starr notes, “He was in civilian clothes. He was unarmed. My heart sank when inspection of a bag dropped by one of the men revealed foodstuffs inside. Was he actually Hamas? What if he was just a civilian desperate for the food we had abandoned in our old complex? Did we really have enough intelligence to use deadly force?”

Starr adds, “Even if Hamas and its ilk did not value life, the life of men like the one I killed still had innate value. Like Gaza, their lives were full of potential – he could have had a family, loved, studied, a career. Instead, he died among the ruins of a place that could have been teeming with orchards, hotels, and tourists as a jewel of the Mediterranean.” But he goes on to conclude: “His death, all the destruction we had witnessed, had to be a necessary step in service of ending the war in victory.”

However, far more of the soldiers I profiled expressed overall positive summaries of their service, and many of them have since been featured in news outlets and at Jewish community events speaking about it, or even taking part in programs to encourage and/or act as guides for the next generation of lone soldiers. In fact, my database would not exist (or would at least be significantly reduced in size) if the soldiers were not so willing to speak publicly in positive terms about their service. 

It is important to remember, however, that there are likely hundreds of other soldiers who have not discussed their service publicly and may have different feelings about it.

Areas of Service

I was able to find the specific units that more than 30 of the soldiers served in. 

The three most common were the Givati Brigade (at least four soldiers), the Golani Brigade (at least six soldiers) and the Nahal Brigade (at least eight soldiers). 

The Givati Brigade was formed in 1947 and played a role in capturing and ethnically cleansing Palestinian villages during the Nakba. It is categorized as an infantry brigade and is part of the Southern Command. The brigade received international attention in 2022 after some of its soldiers were accused and later found guilty of spitting at the Armenian archbishop and other Christian pilgrims during a procession in Jerusalem.  

The Golani Brigade was formed in 1948. It is categorized as an infantry brigade and is part of the Northern Command, which is focused on Lebanon and Syria. It has played a substantial role in Israel’s attacks on Gaza since Oct. 7, 2023. It was also the most-impacted Israeli military unit that day, with at least 72 of its members being killed.  

The Nahal Infantry Brigade was formed in 1982 amidst Israel’s war with Lebanon. It is categorized as an infantry brigade and is part of the Southern Command. It also suffered relatively heavy losses on Oct. 7, 2023, with at least 67 of its members being killed.

Other units soldiers served in were: the 7th Brigade, the Caracal Battalion, Duvdevan Unit, Iron Dome Unit, Kfir Brigade and the Netzah Yehuda Battalion.

Conclusions

The vast majority of Canadian Jews do not join the Israeli military. However, mainstream Jewish institutions in the country — synagogues, schools, camps, etc. — generally valorize the Israeli military, pass this framing of it on to youth and offer opportunities for them to immigrate to Israel, which almost always entails becoming a soldier.

Those who join the military are not on the fringes of their community, but rather have taken the direction by mainstream institutions to serve Israel to its furthest extent.

This article offered a general overview of my findings based on what soldiers and the family of soldiers said about themselves. In the near future, I will be releasing articles that focus in-depth on certain aspects mentioned here, and which will include other voices.