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From the Shores of Nova Scotia, Israel's First Soldiers
(National Post-Canada) Rob Gordon - The Fort Edward blockhouse in Windsor, Nova Scotia, assisted in the creation of the State of Israel. In the summer of 1917, in the shadow of the blockhouse, hundreds of Jewish boys from New York, Montreal, Russia and Palestine first put on a uniform and learned how to handle a rifle. It was here that the Jewish Legion was formed up - one of the first all-Jewish military forces in modern times. Although the legion, joined by 1,100 Jews, trained in Canada, they were considered British imperial forces and came under British command. Young recruit David Ben-Gurion, the future first prime minister of Israel, arrived to train with the Jewish Legion on June 1, 1918. Also in Windsor was Ze'ev Jabotinsky, an ardent Zionist who was one of the co-founders of the Jewish Legion. Jabotinsky, like many of the legion soldiers, saw forming a Jewish military unit as essential to their dream of creating an Israel. After the war, many of the legion's former soldiers formed the backbone of Jewish defense teams protecting villages. In 1996, a letter was discovered from Ben-Gurion to the mayor of Windsor describing the importance of what happened beneath Fort Edward. "In Windsor one of the great dreams of my life - to serve as a soldier in a Jewish Unit to fight for the liberation of Israel (as we always called Palestine) became a reality, and I will never forget Windsor, where I received my first training as a soldier, and where I became a corporal."