Canadians volunteer to serve in Israeli military
Martin Gelb expected his daughter to go to university when she graduated from high school in Richmond Hill, Ont., last year. There were several offers from Canadian universities. But instead she joined the Israeli Defence Forces.
And now Netta, 19, is one of a handful of Canadian citizens serving with the IDF amid a two-week war that has killed more than 600 Palestinians and 29 Israelis; and Gelb has become part of an online support group for Canadian parents of “lone soldiers” in Israel — referred to as such because they have no immediate family in the region.
“There was really not much we could do to stop (her),” said Gelb. “It’s very difficult to explain it to people … how she could make that decision, and go off and do it.
“At that age, you can’t really tell them anything.”
When Netta — Israeli-born, with citizenship in Canada where she has lived since age seven — left for Israel in July 2013 along with at least 15 other Canadians, Gelb knew another Israeli conflict with Hamas in the Gaza Strip was “inevitable.” But he didn’t think it would happen while his daughter was in combat duty.
“Be safe,” he said to her over the phone Tuesday.
“That’s the one thing we say over and over,” said Gelb, who was born in Canada and served for the IDF in the 1980s. His daughter is with the Israel’s air defence command in the southern region. Gelb couldn’t go into much detail on his daughter’s role, but said he doesn’t believe she is in “any immediate danger.”
“I just want her to get through this in one piece.”
Perla Riesenbach, whose son Ariel returned from IDF service last October, helped start a Toronto-area support group for Canadian parents of lone soldiers, which meets several times a year.
Riesenbach’s contact list of Ontario-based parents with lone soldiers in Israel totalled 30 names.
Dr. Gary Mann, an emergency room physician at Rouge Valley hospital in Ajax, Ont., was one of the parents at a support-group meeting in Thornhill, Ont., in the spring. His son Ilan, 25, is in Israel as a reservist for the IDF who reiterated to supervisors this week that he is prepared to enter active duty. His younger son, Leor, is completing specialty training for an infantry unit in the region.
“They felt it was their moral obligation to serve the state of Israel and help defend it,” he said of the boys, both born in Canada.