Jonathan Singer, 33-34, was born in Israel but raised in Toronto. A Facebook post about Singer states that “like any good Canadian, he grew up playing hockey, loving maple syrup and praying for the winter to end.” The post adds, “After high school, he attended Yeshivat Shvilei Hatorah for two years, where his love of Israel and Torah grew such that he decided to make Aliyah and continue learning. He then joined the Hesder program at Yeshivat Har Etzion. He would go on to serve in the Nachal Brigade in the Israeli army.” The Canadian Jewish News (CJN) notes that he was drafted in 2011.

Singer’s LinkedIn profile notes that he went on to complete a bachelor of science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and then took on a series of jobs in Chicago and Israel. He is now listed as the educational director at Mechinat Ruach Hanegev, which describes itself as “a gap-year program located in the Negev that strives to cultivate a new generation of strong and inspired religious Zionists.”

The CJN article notes that Singer was in Toronto in 2015 as a volunteer with Ach Gadol, an Israeli non-profit that describes itself as a “Big Brother Organization for Lone Soldiers,” where former lone soldiers mentor current ones. Their website states, “By embracing lone soldiers with social-familial support, we make the soldier’s service more meaningful and facilitate integration into Israeli society, resulting in more productive and accomplished citizens with heightened social awareness.”

Singer spoke to high school students at the Temple Sinai Congregation of Toronto synagogue about his service. CJN reported: “Though he said he was lucky to have been drafted into the army with a number of his friends from yeshiva and put up on weekends by the family of a rabbi he knew, Singer acknowledged the overall difficulty of being a lone soldier, especially when Israeli culture is foreign.”