On Apr. 3, the Lodzer Synagogue in North York hosted Triggered: From Combat to Campus, which was advertised as a chance to hear from two Israeli Soldiers who “fought back in Gaza,” according to the event flyer.
“Join us as they share their experiences of bravery, sacrifice and hope for Zionism – in Israel and on campus,” the flyer also says.
The event was part of a series which toured around several Canadian and American cities with different soldiers speaking. The Toronto edition was initially to be hosted at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), but was moved off-campus to the Lodzer Synagogue after protest from students and faculty.
UPDATE, Feb. 26, 2026: After publication of this article, it came to The Grind’s attention that a small talk by the two IDF soldiers was given, in addition to the larger off-campus event, as per an Instagram post. It appears the event was held on the TMU campus at the Hillel TMU offices. After initially responding to The Grind, TMU Hillel did not confirm or deny whether the event took place there.
Objections to the event on campus stemmed from the fact that Israel has been credibly accused of conducting a genocide in Gaza and that there is extensive documentation of the Israeli military’s war crimes, such as targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, using starvation as a weapon and much more.
The larger off-campus talk was organized by a coalition of Zionist groups including Students Supporting Israel, Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation and the Toronto Zionist Council. None of the groups nor the Lodzer Synagogue responded to The Grind’s requests for comment for this article.
The Grind was able to obtain a recording of the talk, and what I heard was both disturbing and shocking.
I knew that these soldiers, Americans Eli Wininger and Isaac, whose last name was not given, would be carefully censoring themselves so as not to admit to any outright war crimes.
However, Isaac talked about destroying a mosque in Gaza that he claimed had Palestinian militants inside, adding that “after the mosque was taken down we were a little bit, like, feeling ourselves,” which drew laughter from the crowd.
Isaac is an American who served as a paratrooper in the IDF. He also spoke about going into Khan Younis and encountering an older Palestinian woman on the street. “I told myself before I entered [Gaza], I was just like ‘please God, don’t send me a woman or a kid, send me an 18- to 35-year-old man. No regrets there.’ Maybe I shouldn’t say that but that was my mindset.” He said the woman was unarmed and crying and nothing happened, but he shot beside her and she ran away. He believed she was there to gather intelligence.
Wininger, also an American, told a story about being in a city in Gaza that had been a “war zone” for four weeks and said that “humans, civilians should not be there at all.” He went on to muse about whether various people in Gaza were innocent enough to not get blown up by the IDF.
But what struck me most was the way the soldiers, and occasionally the master of ceremony, Andrea Spindal with the Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation, used humour to further dehumanize Palestinian life during the question and answer (Q&A) part of the program.
During that section, the two soldiers made an effort to get the audience laughing. It seemed that this was a tactic, a calculated strategy. If they can make an audience laugh while they field questions about their tales of gunfire and displacing Palestinians from their homes, then people will be more sympathetic to the soldiers’ cause and less sympathetic to Palestinians experiencing genocide.
At one point in the Q&A, Wininger, who served in the IDF Egoz commando unit, mentioned his surprise at the high turnout of attendees along the tour, including in Winnipeg. “Who’s heard of Winnipeg?!” he exclaimed, which was met with a wave of laughter from the room.
Later, moderator Spindel asked: “What do you need and what can we do for you? Somebody’s asking whether or not you actually have the proper equipment because we did hear, early on in the war anyhow, there was a tremendous shortage. A lot of the funds that were collected in Canada and elsewhere I think were for equipment, for protective gear, even for ambulances. So what is the state of the military now and what do you need?”
This feels especially absurd to me, given the tens of millions of dollars of arms and weapons already sent from Canada to Israel.
Wininger responded that there are fewer shortages now but that donations came in handy in the past and helped him while he was in Gaza and Lebanon.
“Now there is less of the micro-funding needed unless you know the person, like actually know the person or have a friend who directly knows the person. I wouldn’t donate to a random GoFundMe unless it’s fully, fully, fully verified, otherwise — if so, send it because that is going directly to the soldiers. I think while they’ve gotten a lot of heat, FIDF [Friends of the IDF] does amazing, amazing, amazing work. They’re spending $100 million on the largest rehabilitation and PTSD facility in the IDF’s history,” Wininger said.
He also cracked a joke that “If you really wanna donate, I can create a GoFundMe for my room,” in reference to the cost of his accommodations on the tour. Again, this is met with laughter from the audience.
He then added that, “In actuality, I would like to get thermal optics for two people. I’m in the machine-gunners so I don’t need it, but if you guys really wanted to do something like that, I would like to get — not for every person, just one or two — but it’s still a chunk of change. I could set that up. I’m not sure if that’s where the question was going. Not for me but for my platoon.”
The moderator Spindel says “That’s great,” and there are a few cheers of “Ya!” from the crowd.
Neither Spindel nor Wininger responded to The Grind’s questions about whether funds were raised that night for the Israeli military, not about the appropriateness of fundraising for a military credibly accused of genocide.
Wininger then turned to strategies to support Israel beyond direct military support.
“I think we’re doing very, very well on the physical military front. I think what we’re lacking big time and we weren’t even fully supplied quote-unquote, is the social media front, the university front. So I think that is where a huge fraction of the war is,” Wininger told the crowd. “We’re obviously crushing it over there. Here, we’re not. Whether it’s the application [promoted by the hosts earlier in the program], whether it’s SSI [Students Supporting Israel], whether it’s to StandWithUs or AIPAC [American Israel Public Affairs Committee] or CPAC or whatever it is, it’s so vital that we are winning this war as well. And the sad thing is we’re losing.”
To me, Wininger’s comments about losing support for Israel on social media shows the IDF is aware they are losing in the court of public opinion. On this speaking tour, using humour to make the soldiers seem more relatable feels like another calculated, tactical decision to emphasize the ridiculous statement that the IDF is “the most moral army,” as they always like to claim.
At one point in the evening, an audience member asks about Breaking the Silence, an organization that supports ex-IDF soldiers who speak out about the atrocities and war crimes committed by the IDF. Wininger calls them “bad apples” and says “I hate them.” Once again the audience laughs.
The jokes from the two speakers, interspersed with stories of evacuating and rummaging through UNRWA schools or arresting kids in the West Bank, feels both wildly insensitive and absurdly out of touch with the reality that most Palestinians in Gaza have been living through, facing constant bombardment.
At one point, both soldiers discussed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the Israeli military and how the state is managing it. Isaac says “I just wanna say a joke … I got more trauma from my ex-girlfriend than I do from Gaza.” Again, the audience responds with bellowing laughter.
To me, this was one of the most disturbing comments of the evening. The comment is both misogynistic and wildly dehumanizing.
After this comment, the moderator remarks, “We have girls for you here!” The audience, again, responds with laughter.
Towards the end of the Q&A portion of the program, moderator Spindel is speaking about the conditions of life for Israelis during the invasion of Gaza and expresses gratitude that the birth rate in Israel remains high. To this comment, Wininger responds: “All those nights under rocket fire.”
It became clear to me during this event that these men are attempting to both further dehumanize Palestinians and to humanize themselves. Making the audience laugh is a tactic to garner sympathy, to make light of a literal genocide, and to make it seem like people who may have committed war crimes are just like us.
