Over the last ten years, the increasingly high rate of anti-Semitism in France is matched by an increase of Jews leaving the country.
According to Israeli data, about 3,500 Jews made aliyah in 2021, an increase from about 2,200 Jews who made aliyah in 2020. Previously, there was a surge of Jews, who left France in 2014 and 2015, over 7,000 in both years, in the wake of the terror attacks in 2012 at a Jewish school in Toulouse, and in 2015 at a kosher supermarket.
Shas MK Yossi Taieb, who grew up in France, said: “I’m always happy for every Jew who makes aliyah but it’s sad that, unlike the past, when Jews moved to Israel for ideological reasons, today unfortunately it’s a result of the negative motivation of an increase in anti-Semitism. French Jews have been physically harmed in many of these incidents.”
“As part of my position in the Knesset as the chairman of the Israel-France Inter-Parliamentary Friendship Association, I’ve met with a number of parties, among them Parliament members, Senate members, and the chairman of the Foreign Affairs and Security Committee. I’m also in continuous contact with organizations who work to bring groups of French public opinion leaders to Israel to show them how Israel is the only democratic government in the Middle East.”
“I’ve spoken with many groups in the Knesset and I explained the State’s position on many issues. Little by little these activities affect non-Jewish students in France. We must work hard on explaining our position to prevent the negative discourse that is increasing in France against Jews and Israelis.”
(YWN Israel Desk – Jerusalem)
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3 Responses
This is hyperbole. There were much more antisemitic assaults and terrorist attacks (r”l) in recent years in America than in France.
There is a vibrant Jewish community with Jews who walk around proudly Jewish (although Yarmulkas are less common since most of them are sefardim).
There is a large Chabad yeshiva there with hundreds of bochurim who take to the streets of Paris every Friday to do mivtzoim, and they dress with their distinct Chassidic garb, yet they never experience antisemitism.
Yes, there are some hostile Arab neighborhoods where I wouldn’t recommend a Jew to walk alone at night, although bochurim do walk through in groups on Yomim Tovim without incident. (We have many neighborhoods like that around Brooklyn)
It’s always comical when the bochurim stand in the Pletzel on Fridays blasting niggunim and offering Tefillin, and then an American yeshivishe family passes by as tourists with baseball caps and hiding their payos and tzitzis with fear of imminent attack.
When wishing them ‘Gut Shabbos’ they immediately recoil in fear, ‘Oy! Is it noticeable that I’m Jewish!?’
Francistan hating Jews? What? Who would’ve thought!
In recent times, Jews are leaving France, Ukraine & all Middle Eastern countries. I see the hand of the Almighty (HaShem) making or forcing Jews to return from the diaspora — this return does not occur overnight but in a deliberate plan by HaShem.
This may well signal the Messiah’s entrance to Israel via the East Gate—which I understood from Rabbi E.Beane zt’l was blocked with brickwork by the Arabs.
A goy, Gerry Mullen