Ashley Waxman Bakshi, 39-40, was born and raised in Canada, according to a March 2025 profile of her in the Jewish Chronicle.
A January 2022 Canadian Jewish News (CJN) profile about Waxman Bakshi states: “Waxman Bakshi was the youngest and only girl in the family growing up in Hamilton, Ontario. […] Waxman Bakshi’s late father Hy Waxman was a child Holocaust survivor from Romania. The family settled in Hamilton, where she attended Hamilton Hebrew Academy and Jewish summer camps. It was only after returning from a Birthright trip to Israel that she first encountered Jew hatred and anti-Israel campus politics.
‘There were literally huge rallies talking about apartheid and about this wall and segregation and comparing Israel to South Africa, and I was like, why is nobody on campus talking about why,’ she said, referring to the barrier wall between Israel and the West Bank constructed after years of suicide bombings and terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens.
Waxman Bakshi began to advocate on behalf of Israel while studying at Wilfrid Laurier University, in Waterloo, and also later, when she transferred to York University to complete her degree.”
A July 2016 Jewish Chronicle article about Waxman Bakshi states: “Born to Israeli parents, she grew up in Toronto’s commuter belt with no intention of moving to Israel. ‘My entire childhood I hated Israel,’ she says. ‘I thought it was too hot and full of cockroaches.’ At 18, however, Ashley signed up to a Birthright tour of Israel. Although her main reason for joining was because it was a ‘free trip’, the experience proved transformative. Back in Canada, she engaged with student politics. ‘I started paying more attention to the anti-Israel feeling on campus. I became more involved and started learning more about the conflict.’ Eventually, she decided to enlist in the IDF and make aliyah. ‘My family thought I was nuts,’ she says. She served the mandatory two years, followed by an extra three as an officer in the Air Force, selling aircraft and military hardware to foreign armies. Upon leaving in 2012, she was recruited by the Ministry of Defence to work in defence co-operation. ‘It was the direction I wanted to go in; to stay in defence and maybe eventually move into politics,’ she says.”
The CJN profile notes that after finishing at university, Waxman Bakshi “immigrated to Israel in 2006 to serve in the Israel Defense Forces.” Her YouTube channel states this happened when she was 21. The 2025 Jewish Chronicle profile states: “Her pro-Israel advocacy began at university in Canada, where she first encountered antisemitism. ‘It’s the reason I left Canada 20 years ago,’ she says.”
The CJN article describes her as “Israel’s first YouTube lifestyle content producer,” stating that she worked in this capacity for about 10 years and then shifted into being an advocate for Israel. It notes: “The focus on selling Israel, alongside her empire of beauty products, is part of a new project supported by the Jewish State’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The government is hoping to combat the explosion of online hatred towards Israel and the Jews by harnessing a group of Israel’s top social media personalities who were already defending the country on their own platforms. The group, including Waxman Bakshi, counts a combined following of 30 million viewers and subscribers including on YouTube and TikTok. ‘We don’t work for the government. We’re not getting paid to do this,’ Waxman Bakshi said in a recent interview with The CJN, adding that the Israeli government’s efforts until now have been ineffective.”
The article states that after immigrating to Israel, Waxman Bakshi also “worked for the Ministry of Defense in Israel, and she completed a graduate degree in counterterrorism. That preparation, she feels, makes her even more qualified to fight the disinformation war on behalf of her adopted country.”
The 2025 Jewish Chronicle profile adds, “She had fun while earning fame and fortune in Israel, yet those close to her always knew she was much more than just a pretty face. She has a degree in business and economics, a masters in counter-terrorism and her CV includes a stint in Israel’s Ministry of Defence, where she traded weapons with other nations. Then Hamas launched its murderous assault on Israel on October 7, 2023 and everything changed. Ever since, Waxman Bakshi has used her voice to fight Israel’s corner on the international stage and demand that those held hostage in Gaza are brought home.”
It continues, “She is a key representative of the Israeli Citizen Spokespersons’ Office, an NGO co-founded by former government spokesman Eylon Levy to defend Israel and the Jewish people on the global stage.”
Waxman Bakshi was the featured speaker at a March 2025 event at the Prosserman Jewish Community Centre, which was advertised as follows: “An evening with Ashley Waxman Bakshi, a Canadian-born Israeli influencer, entrepreneur, and activist. Ashley has seamlessly blended her passion for beauty with advocacy, using her platform to combat Jew-hatred and support Israel. Her commitment intensified recently when her cousin, Agam Berger, was among those held hostage by Hamas and subsequently freed.”
Waxman Bakshi has more than 394,000 followers on her Instagram account, and more than 149,000 on TikTok.
