Lionel Kalles, 38-39, is a Canadian from Toronto. He immigrated to Israel in 2016, and began attempting to join the Israeli military, which he told the Jerusalem Post in 2017 he had wanted to do since he was a child: “‘I’ve wanted to join the army since I was young,’ he told the Post, adding that extenuating circumstances prevented him from serving until now. ‘My reasons for not serving in the IDF earlier in life was due to my responsibility to my own family, and despite that, I came close several times.’”

In a Facebook post, he said, “Since I was young the IDF has been the only thing I think about, day and night,” and in another said that his mother had urged him to join the military before she died.

The military rejected Kalles citing his age and poor Hebrew. As a result, Kalles launched a protest outside the military’s headquarters in Tel Aviv, holding up a sign calling on it to allow him to join. This campaign attracted international attention, and Kalles also created a Facebook page for it that eventually amassed more than 800 followers. In July 2017 after more than a year of attempts, Kalles was eventually allowed to draft. A January 2020 post at the website for the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews stated that Kalles had joined the Border Patrol on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem.