A new database exploring GTA institutions associated with Canadians who served in Israel’s military
In February, The Maple released Find IDF Soldiers, an online database with names and profiles of Canadians who have served in the Israeli military.
The site, which now contains 206 profiles based entirely on public information, was created to help answer questions such as “who Canadians that have joined the Israeli military are, why they made the choice they did, who or what influenced them to do so, what they did while in the military, and how they may feel about it.” The site does not accuse these soldiers of having violated any Canadian law or participated in Israeli military crimes.
The vast majority of the people on the website were born and raised in Canada and immigrated to Israel later, sometimes with the express intent of joining its military. Some of them have stated that at least part of the reason they did so was because of their experiences at institutions in Canada.
GTA to IDF is a new project from The Maple’s opinion editor, Davide Mastracci, dedicated to learning more about these institutions in the Greater Toronto Area, including what they’ve had to say about Israel and its military.
Canada is a significant contributor of “lone soldiers” to the Israeli military. These soldiers come exclusively from Canada’s Jewish communities, as they are the only ones able to immigrate to Israel solely on the basis of their ethnoreligious background. As of 2021, about half of Jewish Canadians lived in Toronto. The Find IDF Soldiers project found that the average lone 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.” This is why the GTA has been selected as the geographical area for this project. (more...)
No comments:
Post a Comment