Ellin speaks to Rose Reisman’s monthly lecture series ‘Rosebuds’ in Toronto, on Monday Nov. 18, 2019

Although the Second World War was a man’s war, and 17,000 Canadian Jewish men served, a tiny but important group of 270 Canadian Jewish women dared to overcome their family and community’s disapproval, the lower pay, and sexual harassment, and joined the Canadian forces after 1941. That is when the government allowed women to enlist. They served in many jobs at home, and behind the front lines, overseas.  Women drove ambulances, taught phys-ed, served up meals,  took dictation about top secret radar, and packed parachutes. Others were military police, like my Aunt Daisy Friedberg, (nee Lazare). Section Officer Rose Goodman was a high ranking Adjutant at an RCAF training base in Alberta, where fighter pilots were preparing to go overseas and into combat. Some of the women, including Mimi Freedman, went to Normandy just 40 days after D-Day, and dodged bombs and bullets. For Remembrance Week, author and journalist Ellin Bessner speaks to the Rosebuds group about her book “Double Threat: Canadian Jews, the Military, and WWII”. Books will be available for signing and sale at the event.