Helping Jewish high schools in Montreal prepare for Remembrance Day

Ellin will speak at the Azrieli Herzliah High School, Bialik High School, Hebrew Academy, and at both branches of Ecole Maimonide to their senior high school students.  The 17,000 Canadian Jewish men (and women) who served in WWll were about the same age as these Grade 11 students are now:  16 or 17, turning 18, and about to graduate. When the Second World War broke out in the fall of 1939, those young men and women from Montreal and from across the country, had to interrupt their studies and put on a uniform, either as a volunteer, or as a conscript, when the government’s call up notice arrived at their house. If they had quit school early to go to work, they had to give up a paid job for $1.30 a day army wages.

Imagine the conversations that these young Canadians had with their friends and classmates, with their worried families and with their coworkers: was it their duty to defend their country and their King? Could they help save Europe’s Jews from Hitler’s Final Solution? What was the best branch of the military to enlist in? How could they keep kosher while in the army? (Answer: they couldn’t.) Would they be able to come back home on leave for the Jewish holidays? (Answer: sometimes.) Was the Air Force accepting Jews? Was the Navy? (Answer: not many).