Western European immigration to Israel surges

Though not directly involved, three Jewish organizations are actively performing their stated missions ranging from distributing grants to many other groups and supporting their programs and services to aid the greatest surge of western European Jews immigrating to Israel.

Based on figures from the Jewish Agency, 9,880 western European Jews immigrated to Israel — 8,000 from France — in 2015, more than 10 percent than 2014 and double the number in 2013.

“We definitely know about it,” said Scott Feltman, executive director of the Cedarhurst-based One Israel Fund about the immigration wave. “Our basic modus operandi is to help the communities in Judea and Samaria. If the immigrants eventually move in we will be helping them.”

The Jewish Agency attributes this wave of Jewish-French immigration to three factors. The rise of anti-Semitic acts and sentiment in France. Violent acts of anti-Semitism increased by 130 percent between 2013 and 2014. Agency officials said that even before the Hyper Cache supermarket attack in January of last year, where four people were killed, immigration was increasing; the trend spiked after that attack and the JA anticipates a continue rise. Half of the hate crimes committed in France target Jewish people, who are less than 1 percent of the country’s total population.

Stagnation of the French economy: 24 percent of the residents under 28 are unemployed and the deeply embedded culture of passionate Zionism within French Jewry: 70 percent of French Jews have visited Israel at least once, are the other two primary reasons.

“Events of the last few years have shown that while in the past Israel needed world Jewry for its security, now world Jewry needs Israel for its security,” said Rabbi Jay Rosenbaum, spiritual leader of Temple Israel of Lawrence and founder and secretary general of the North American Board of Rabbis, an umbrella organization for boards of rabbis across the U.S. and Canada. “During the war with Gaza a little over a year , planes full of French Jews were landing at Ben Gurion Airport.”