Jeremy Urbach, 23-24, is a Canadian from Toronto. He attended TanenbaumCHAT, a private Jewish school in Toronto, for high school, and also went to the Adath Israel Congregation synagogue.
Urbach has written about how his involvement in Toronto’s Jewish community led him to care about Israel: “Israel engagement in Toronto is extremely effective and it remarkably changed my life. The main method of Israel engagement in Toronto is through the UJA’s ShinShinim program. ShinShinim are some of the brightest young Israeli 18-year-olds who delay their mandatory army service to come and volunteer in Toronto.”
Urbach writes, “In 2013, I was lucky enough to host a ShinShin, an 18-year-old boy named Barak. In order to explain the impact this had on me I must explain how engaged I was with Israel before and after hosting him. Before I hosted Barak I liked Israel; I thought it was pretty. I didn’t know that many cities and I knew nothing about life over there. If there was a war in Israel my reaction would be ‘oh that sucks’ and would move on quickly. If I heard my parents talking about Israel I wouldn’t care because it wasn’t a big part of my life. Since I hosted Barak I started to appreciate Israel for more than her beauty, but for her people, innovations, and importance. I made it my responsibility to learn about my homeland and all it has to offer, and the following year when there was a war in Gaza, I would fear because I had a personal connection to someone Israel.”
After high school, Urbach went to Israel to study at a yeshiva. After this, he attended Western University in an undergraduate business program, and served as the president of Chabad on the campus for an academic year, according to his LinkedIn.
Urbach was in his fourth year on Oct. 7, 2023. According to an article in the National Post, he decided that day to begin to prepare to immigrate to Israel: “Literally, on Oct. 7, I made the decision to go to the (Israeli) army. I made a vow. There’s no way this is gonna happen again without them going through me first […] I think a big reason was just my experience on campus. Like, all these people screaming and we couldn’t really do anything.”
The paper wrote, “After October 7, Urbach became a determined advocate for the Jewish community on Western’s campus. At one point he and several other students ‘went rogue’ and taped up posters around campus of the hostages kidnapped by Hamas. ‘Before we knew it, there were literally kids following us and just ripping them down. I remember interacting with them, asking why they were opposed to advocating for Israeli civilians taken by a designated terrorist group.’ The response, he said, was ‘we don’t care.’” Urbach said the school’s administration did little to reassure Jewish students they were safe on campus.”
Urbach immigrated to Israel in August 2024. He has since posted videos on his Instagram account documenting his time in the Israeli military. He told the National Post, “This is the best place to be Jewish. This is the best place where I could tell my story of being a ‘lone soldier’ making aliyah.”
