TORONTO — Being a lone soldier can make any problem – breaking up with a girlfriend, dealing with a difficult landlord, missing one’s family – feel amplified, says Jonathan Singer, 24, an Israeli-Canadian volunteer with the Israeli non-profit organization Ach Gadol.

While visiting his family in Toronto this month, Singer helped raise awareness about Ach Gadol, speaking to high school students at Temple Sinai about the work the organization does.

Ach Gadol, which translates to “big brother,” is a volunteer-driven non-profit that was founded five years ago with the mission to provide assistance and support to what Israelis call “lone soldiers” – those serving in the Israel Defence Forces whose families don’t live in Israel.

In addition to co-ordinating social events, lectures and skills-building and cultural workshops for lone soldiers, Ach Gadol matches former lone IDF soldiers with those who are currently enlisted.

By doing so, it creates an infrastructure of support that ensures that lone soldiers have someone to turn to when dealing with issues of any kind.

“It’s a way for them to have someone who can speak with them at eye level… Someone to turn to about just about anything, whether it’s a problem they’re having with the army, understanding their rights or wanting to know about studying in Israel after the army,” said Singer, who was born in Israel but raised in Toronto and was drafted into the IDF in 2011 after making aliyah.

He and fellow Ach Gadol volunteers are assigned to act as mentors to small groups of lone soldiers living, when off base, in apartments funded by the American organization Friends of The Israel Defence Forces.

“I’m supposed to [visit] and make sure everything is OK with them,” Singer, who is currently studying at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said.

At present, 200 volunteers have been assigned to support about 400 lone soldiers, and Ach Gadol hopes to recruit more volunteers and further expand its reach.

Daniel Aharon, Ach Gadol’s founder and CEO, said the organization also helps prepare about 200 prospective lone soldiers for the army each year.

“Through joining the IDF, learning Hebrew and understanding Israeli culture, lone soldiers become true Israelis and an integral part of our society. Many lone soldiers do this with the help of their ‘big sister’ or ‘big brother,’ ” he said.   

The volunteers are mainly students or young professionals, and the lone soldiers include those who have come from countries all over the world to volunteer in the IDF or make aliyah as well as Israelis who have lost, or are estranged from, their families.

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.

“The army is generally a stressful place, so not having that backbone of your family close by, that support system that everyone else does, definitely makes it that much more intense,” he noted.

He cited issues such as navigating army bureaucracy, homesickness and even having to rush home on Fridays to shop and cook for the weekend for oneself, as experiences that can be particularly tough for lone soldiers.

“Israelis who have grown up with [the military culture] are more used to it. There can be cultural differences in terms of knowing how to work the system. If you’re Israeli and say, you had an older brother who was in the army before and can tell you what to expect at every stage, that’s easier,” Singer said.

Aharon stressed that Ach Gadol volunteers serve as mediators to help lone soldiers “work with the system instead of against it, and become capable, confident young adults.”

To expand its operations, the organization hopes to cultivate both awareness and funds from Jewish communities in North America, and Aharon said Passover is an apt time to consider the difficulties faced by lone soldiers.

“[At this time], we remember the challenges that the Jewish people have gone through, where we started out and how we became the nation we are today… These young adults are our future. It’s our obligation to strengthen their connection to their Jewish roots and to the state of Israel.”