New recruits entering the YMHA during WWII. During the War, 17,000 Canadian Jews joined the Canadian Armed Forces.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library - Archives
Sydney S. Shulemson, 7th (Montreal) Field Battery, R.C.A.
Photo Credit : Library and Archives Canada
Sydney S. Shulemson (2nd from left) in Saint-Sauveur, Quebec, 1938.
Photo Credit : Library and Archives Canada
The YMHA Active Service Centre Room during WWII.
Photo Credit : Jewish Public Library - Archives
Sydney S. Shulemson, 6th from left in the 3rd row, Petawawa, Ontario, 1930.
Photo Credit : Library and Archives Canada
Sydney S. Shulemson (4th from left) and a group of soldiers in Monction, N.B., 1942.
Photo Credit : Library and Archives Canada
Sydney S. Shulemson (right), 1940.
Photo Credit : Library and Archives Canada
Shulemson's biography, published by the CJC in 1944 in their comic strip series Jewish War Heroes.
Photo Credit : Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives
1915 - 2007
Sydney Simon Shulemson
In the modern era, Jews have served their countries bravely in all branches of the armed forces.
The Second World War and the Holocaust, in particular, demanded Jewish involvement in the war effort. Over 1.5 million Jews served in the Allied Forces (Canada, UK, US, USSR) and, of those, 16,441 men and 279 women served in Canada’s Armed Forces. While Jews made up 1.5% of the 1940 population of Canada, they composed 2.6% of the RCAF, 1.4% of its soldiers and 0.7% of its sailors. 39% of eligible Jewish men in Canada served their country.
17,000 Canadian Jews fought against Nazism. Montreal-born Wing Commander Harry Shapiro, for instance, received his first Distinguished Flying Cross in 1942 from King George VI for missions over Cologne and Berlin. He received his second Distinguished Flying Cross after completing 49 stories. Several Canadian Jews were captured by the Germans and kept as Prisoners of War, and slightly over 400 Canadian Jewish military personnel were killed in the service of their country.
Squadron Leader Sydney Simon Shulemson was Canada’s most decorated, and best known, Jewish fighter/bomber pilot, responsible for inflicting heavy damages on German ships in the North Atlantic. He was a graduate of Baron Byng High School and McGill. After enlisting in the Canadian Armed Forces in 1939, he flew some 50 missions with the 404th Battalion, including several victorious ones against German forces. He received the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross for his services with the Royal Canadian Air Force. His exemplary achievements illustrate the commitment of all those in Montreal’s Jewish community who served with the Canadian army.
In 1947, Shulemson attended a clandestine meeting in New York City to discuss the defense of the future state of Israel. He made a case for the importance of air power, a recommendation that appears to have contributed to the creation of the Israeli Air Force. Back in Montreal, his birth city, he recruited pilots and procured weapons and planes for the defense of the emerging Israeli state. In 1947, Shulemson and his brother-in-law, Morris “Two Gun” Cohen, engaged in backroom diplomacy to persuade China not to vote against the UN Partition Plan for the creation of the State of Israel. Shulemson was honoured with a citation as a Fighter for the State of Israel.
