A 20-year-old Torontonian is in a coma after suffering an injury while fighting with the Israeli military. His high school should lose its charitable status and its officials investigated for violating Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act.
On July 24, Ben Brown was reportedly hit by shrapnel from Hezbollah rocket fire while on an army base in the illegally occupied Shebaa Farms or Mount Dov. Brown joined the Israeli military after attending Toronto’s Bnei Akiva (Or Chaim) high school. In a recent podcast about his injury, the Canadian Jewish News replayed parts of a three-year-old interview with Brown’s older brother, Zach, headlined “lone soldier from Canada serving in the IDF”. In it Zach, who attended the same school as his brother, boasts about how he was the “top sharpshooter” in a company of the Kfir brigade, which he described as “a combat unit that primarily specializes in urban warfare in the West Bank”. In the illegally occupied territory, Zach said he participated in “ambushes” and “many arrests” while leading “countless countless checkpoints” and having “lots of experiences in the army to say the least”.
Alongside other Canadians currently fighting in the Israeli military, Zach Brown should be investigated by the RCMP for violating Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act. At the same time, those responsible for Bnei Akiva Schools should be investigated for violating the Foreign Enlistment Act, which states that “any person who, within Canada, recruits or otherwise induces any person or body of persons to enlist or to accept any commission or engagement in the armed forces of any foreign state or other armed forces operating in that state is guilty of an offence.”
In the podcast about Ben Brown’s injury the family’s rabbi tells the Canadian Jewish News reporter that the brothers’ joined the IOF partly because of the “education they received at” Bnei Akiva Schools. In a more startling revelation, the mother of one of Zach’s classmates at Or Chaim says “a quarter of the class” joined the Israeli military. It’s outrageous that a quarter of these Toronto teenagers traveled halfway across the world to join an occupation force committing a holocaust in Gaza.
Bnei Akiva teaches its students to celebrate the Israeli military. “Love Bnei Akiva?! Love the IDF?! Come run the Jerusalem Marathon with us! Bnei Akiva has partnered with Tikvot and together we are raising funds to help injured IDF soldiers and terror victims recuperate!”, said a 2018 school Facebook post. The school regularly has active soldiers speak and the IDF choir perform.
The school has a plaque honoring alumni who joined the Israeli military and its website highlights graduates who fought in the IDF. A 2014 school dinner to congratulate “over 100 alumni who served in the IDF” included a video message from the mayor of Jerusalem and current Israeli economy minister Nir Barkat. (Last year former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett visited Bnei Akiva Schools.)
Testimonials on its website suggest the school devotes significant effort to inducing kids to join the Israeli military. A student described a showing of “Beneath the Helmet: From High School to the Home Front,” which describes itself as “a coming of age story that highlights five young Israeli high school graduates, who are drafted into the army to defend their country.” The student noted,
“This Tuesday, the entire school assembled in the Multi-Purpose Room for a screening of Beneath the Helmet. Watching soldiers who are only a year older than myself be drafted into the army, and seeing their experiences was truly inspiring. After the movie finished, Lt. Aviv Regev, who commanded 120 soldiers including those featured in the movie, addressed the school in a conversation about the movie and the army in general. He spoke about the camaraderie felt in the IDF despite its incredible diversity.”
Another former student is quoted saying, “I looked up to many of my teachers and strove to emulate them. They caused me to take my first steps into youth work as a teenager still in high school, they are what drove me to draft in the IDF.”
The World Bnei Akiva movement has an academy in Israel that prepares non-Israelis to join the Israeli military. Zach Brown participated in the program. Bnei Akiva School’s LinkedIn profile notes, “upon graduation, students typically spend at least one or more years of study in Israel, and many serve in the IDF” and until I wrote about Bnei Akiva potentially violating Canada’s Foreign Enlistment Act, its Wikipedia page stated: “the school strongly encourages graduates to attend the IDF in Israel.”
Bnei Akiva Schools received three and a half million dollars in federal government grants in 2021 and 2022 (the last years of its budget the public has access to). The school has received more in public subsidy through donations from other registered charities with about a quarter of its nearly $10 million budget coming from other taxpayer-subsidized charities. Additionally, Bnei Akiva grants nearly five million dollars a year in tax receipts to donors through its own charitable status.
Does funneling a quarter of a class of students into the Israeli army amount to supporting a foreign military?
Yet Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) charity guidelines state clearly that “supporting the armed forces of another country is not” charitable activity. Does funneling a quarter of a class of students into the Israeli army amount to supporting a foreign military?
Even if it isn’t violating CRA rules regarding foreign militaries, the breadth of its tax receipt probably does. CRA rules state clearly that paying private school tuition is not tax deductible except any portion covering “religious” studies.
With only a small amount of Bnei Akiva’s budget listed as coming from non-tax receipted sources, the school is likely granting parents the right to claim a subsidy for the school’s promotion of Zionism, a racist colonial ideology. Or put differently, when the school funnels kids to the Israeli military in possible violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act all taxpayers are subsidizing this “religious” activity. The CRA should audit the school.
Irrespective of the legality of its tax manoeuvres, it is scandalous that a quarter of a Toronto school’s students are going to a military occupying and slaughtering Palestinians.
Ontario Palestinian Rights Association, Canadian Foreign Policy Institute, Palestinian and Jewish Unity, and Just Peace Advocates are asking people to send letters to the Canada Revenue Agency requesting it revoke the charity status of Bnei Akiva Schools. Send a letter here.