Ben Dunkelman

After the war Dunkelman was offered, but refused, a commission in the peacetime Israeli Army; the Dunkelmans returned instead to Toronto where he went into the family business, which he expanded then sold to Dylex Limited in 1967. In recognition of Dunkelman’s World War Two service, the Parliament of Canada voted to give Yael Dunkelman Canadian citizenship, instead of forcing her to apply for Canadian citizenship, which her husband called a “splendid gesture”. The Dunkelmans were to have six children.

In 1967, he almost died of a heart attack, which led him to retire from the family’s business of running the Tip Top Tailor company. After his heart attack, he decided to focus on his real passion, collecting art. He and his wife also ran the Dunkelman Gallery in Toronto as well as several restaurants. The Dunkelman Gallery, which he founded in 1967 became a “well-known as a showcase for Canadian and international artists”. In September 1969, the Dunkelman Gallery hosted the personal archaeological collection of the Israeli Defense Minister, General Moshe Dayan, which mostly consisted of art from ancient Canaan and Phoenicia.

He later became a developer. Among his developments were the Cloverdale Mall and the Constellation Hotel, later renamed the Regal Constellation Hotel. Dunkelman was one of the founders of the Island Yacht Club , which he founded in 1951 after the Royal Canadian Yacht Club refused to accept him on the account of his being Jewish. Dunkelman lived in retirement in Toronto until his death.

After the war, he was offered command of the Queen’s Own Rifles but declined owing to business interests at home. Dunkelman returned to Canada, but again decided to travel to war, this time to fight for Israel in the spring of 1948. On 14 May 1948, the Palestine Mandate came to an end and the State of Israel was proclaimed. Israel was immediately invaded by the armies of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon who joined the two Palestinian armies who had been fighting the Jewish population since December 1947. He arrived there at a time when the Israeli army was short of officers with combat experience. Initially, he took command of a mortar unit in the Mahal, the legion of Jewish and Christian foreign volunteers fighting for Israel.

In his autobiography, called Dual Allegiance, Dunkelman tells the story of how, between July 8 and 18, 1948 during Operation Dekel, he led the 7th Brigade and its supporting units as it moved to capture the town of Nazareth. Nazareth surrendered after little more than token resistance. The Palestinians of Nazareth were overwhelmingly Christian. The Palestinian Christians of Nazareth had little interest in being incorporated into a Muslim state, whatever under the leadership of King Abdullah I of Jordan who wanted Palestine for himself or Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, the would-be future Palestinian leader who was being supported by King Farouk of Egypt and King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. The surrender was formalized in a written agreement, where the town leaders accepted to cease hostilities in return for solemn promises from the Israeli officers, including Dunkelman, that no harm would come to the Palestinian civilians of the town.

In 1945, he was awarded a Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for his service in the Hochwald campaign in northwest Germany during the drive to the river Rhine. In March 1945, Dunkelman played a key role in taking the steep Balberger Wald ridge in the dark forests of the Hochwald.

He was in the second wave to land on Juno beach, the Canadian beach in the Normandy landings on D-Day 6 June 1944. During his career with the regiment he earned numerous commendations. He also fought in the difficult campaigns in northern France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany, including bloody battles at Caen, Falaise, and the Battle of the Scheldt to open up the critical port of Antwerp. During the Normandy campaign in June-August 1944 and then during the Battle of the Scheldt, the Canadian Army took heavy losses. At the same time, the policy of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King of only sending “active” members who volunteered to fight overseas ensured there was a shortage of replacements for the losses as there were only a limited number of men who had enlisted voluntarily. Under Mackenzie King’s policy, men were conscripted for the military, but only for the defense of Canada, leading to a situation where two divisions stood waiting on the coast of British Columbia and another division on the coast of Nova Scotia. At the time of the Battle of the Scheldt, Dunkelman wrote in disgust: “We knew why leaves were so scarce. Thanks to Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s handling of the Conscription issue at home”.

He was back in Toronto in 1939 when the Second World War broke out. He attempted to join the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), but anti-semitism in the RCN at the time precluded a naval career. Instead Dunkelman enlisted as a private with The Queen’s Own Rifles of Canada; as the war progressed he rose from Private to Major. Dunkelman enlisted with the Second Battalion of the Queen’s Own Rifles in 1940. Dunkelman later gave his reasons for enlisting as an “active” (willing to fight overseas) member as: “I am a Canadian, proud of Canada’s heritage and proud-if need be-to fight for it.”

At the age of 18, Dunkelman went off to work on a kibbutz in Palestine, at that time a League of Nations Mandate administered by Great Britain. Dunkelman was inspired by his Zionist mother to go to the Palestine Mandate. At the kibbutz, he worked as a shomer, an armed watchman, whose duty it was to protect the kibbutz from being attacked by Palestinian raiders. Dunkelman recalled: “I went off a flabby, pampered boy; I returned as a tough young man who had seen the world.” He loved the Holy Land, and only reluctantly returned to Toronto. He returned to Toronto in 1932 to assist his father, but went again to Palestine in the late 1935 to develop new settlements.

He attended Upper Canada College in Toronto, where he was noted for his active social life and for excelling at football. Besides for his love of sports, Dunkelman enjoyed sailing Lake Ontario in his yacht. In 1931, financial losses caused by the Great Depression forced David Dunkelman to sell off Sunnybrook Farm.

Benjamin “Ben” Dunkelman (26 June 1913 – June 11, 1997) was a Canadian Jewish officer who served in the Canadian Army in World War II and the Israel Defense Forces in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. In Israel, he was called Benjamin Ben-David.