The Jewish community in France is the largest in Europe.  It includes an estimated 400,000 to 600,000 people.  Why are these numbers non-specific?   Because France is prohibited by law from collecting official statistics on the race or religion of its citizens.

According to the Jewish Agency, the number of French citizens who emigrated to Israel in 2013 was 2,185.  This is an increase of 49% compared to the same period in 2012. Moving to Israel is called “making Aliyah”.  Aliyah is Hebrew for “ascent” or “going up”.

The Jewish community has always been well integrated into French society.  So why are some of them leaving?  Ask some misinformed Jews outside of France and the knee-jerk response is the same: because France is an anti-semitic country and Jews are escaping the rising tide of anti-Semitism there.

I’m afraid that not only is this not true, but that response is simply too facile and lazy.  Lazy people who choose to stay misinformed (because they can’t be bothered to dig deeper into a subject and depend entirely on hearsay) irk me.

There is no denying that random anti-Semitic attacks perpetrated by uneducated, disaffected young Muslims have been reported with some regularity here, and this is indeed shocking and alarming. However, ask French Jews themselves why they are leaving France for Israel and the responses become more diverse.

“France is not an anti-Semitic country,” said Roger Cukierman, president of an umbrella group of Jewish organizations in France. “Out of a population of about 600,000, some 2,000 people making aliya is not very many, in spite of all the talk about leaving.”

Many politicians here (far more than in other countries) are Jewish:  Nicolas Sarkozy, son of a Hungarian immigrant and grandson of a Greek Jew; Simone Veil, feminist icon and ex-minister of Health; Laurent Fabius, diplomat and current foreign minister; Jean-François Copé, president of the UMP; Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former minister of the Economy, Finance and Industry; Jacques Attali, advisor to President Mitterand; Jack Lang, former minister of Culture; Bertrand Delanoë, mayor of Paris from 2001 to 2014, to name a few.

As mentioned above, France has the largest Jewish community in Europe.  It also happens to have the largest Muslim population in Europe.  An influx of Algerians, Tunisians, and Moroccans (coming from the former French colonies) arrived as guest workers in the 1950s and 60s and today the Muslim community approaches six million, or 10 percent of the the country’s population.

Muslims tend to face more discrimination than earlier groups of immigrants, and a significant portion of them cling to the culture of their country of origin. These facts, and the general erosion of the education system, not to mention soaring unemployment, have produced a large underclass of frustrated young Muslims who live in dilapidated, crime-ridden housing projects (ghettos) on the outskirts of French cities.

3 reasons (among other reasons) why some French Jews are leaving France

Reason number one

It has been said that the recent spikes of anti-Semitic attacks reflect the rage of young, underprivileged, frustrated, and misguided Muslims all over Europe. Significantly, the violence seems motivated less by resentment of French Jews, than by anger at Israel. Given that France has both the largest Muslim and the largest Jewish populations in Europe, the recent violence may represent what journalist Michel Gurfinkiel calls an “importation of the Palestinian conflict into France.”

Reason number two

In the last four years France has entered its third recession.  For decades the country has been grappling with crippling unemployment.  In October 2013 I put up a post entitled French exiles: the Emigration Generation.  In it, I mentioned that due to the sharp deterioration of the economic situation here, an estimated 300,000 French are living in London and 200,000 in Belgium.  New York City, Miami, Montreal, Sydney and Singapore are other popular destinations for fleeing French seeking employment.

French Jews aren’t the only ones leaving France.

Reason number three

This is the most interesting and salient fact, yet it is never mentioned:

The Israeli government is expected to unveil a program in the next two weeks aimed at luring French Jews to immigrate to Israel, the Israeli daily Ma’ariv reported in January 2014. The unofficial name of the program is ‘France First’.

The initiative will include a dramatic boost in the amount of Israeli emissaries operating in France; a significant increase in the public relations campaigns targeting French Jewry, and the implementation of new procedures that will expedite the absorption process for French Jews, Ma’ariv said.

Furthermore, the Israeli government is expected to approve new legislation that will greatly facilitate the integration of French Jews into Israeli society. By providing employment opportunities and improved housing conditions to the immigrants from France, Israel hopes the new arrivals will stay permanently, Ma’ariv said.

While the number of immigrants from France to Israel rose significantly in 2012 and 2013, Jerusalem has its sights set on far greater numbers. Government sources associated with the initiative have defined it as “historic.” According to the sources, this will be the first time in Israel’s history that the country will be making a direct, concerted effort to bring Jews to Israel from a Western nation, Ma’ariv said.

The program will have a three-year budget and its estimated cost will be in the tens of millions of shekels.

The stated goal of ‘France First’ is to increase the number of immigrants from France to 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 in 2014, 2015 and 2016, respectively, Ma’ariv said.

The initiative has many influential backers, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“Critics charge that much of the motivation to leave France can be attributed to a concerted effort by the Israeli government to lure French Jews to Israel. With Jewish immigration from the former Soviet Union dried up and the long dreamt-of influx of immigrants from English-speaking countries yet to materialize, Israel is looking to France’s Jewish community – the largest in Europe – to provide a fertile source of “warm bodies” to settle there and add weight to the demographic balance of Jews and Arabs.” 

“Yet not all French Jews are heeding the call to aliya or feel particularly receptive to the Israeli government’s efforts to induce them to emigrate. Other community leaders accuse the Jewish Agency of playing on French Jews’ fears of anti-Semitism while knowing that there will simply not be enough jobs or employment opportunities waiting when they arrive in Israel. Finally, many left-wing French Jews accuse the Jewish Agency of focusing their efforts on religious families while ignoring the secular members of the community.”