| Total population | |
|---|---|
| 200,000 (2012) [1] | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Haifa, Netanya, Ashdod, Beersheba and many other places | |
| Languages | |
| Hebrew, French, Arabic | |
| Religion | |
| Judaism |
French Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants of the French Jewish communities, who now reside within the state of Israel. They numbered over 200,000 as of 2012. [1]
Today, most Jews in France are of Maghrebi extraction. Most of the recent immigration from France to Israel consists of Jews of North African extraction. [2]
Although French Jews have migrated to Israel since the formation of the state in 1948, immigration has increased since 2000 due to antisemitism. Over ten percent of the French Jewish community emigrated to Israel between 2000 and 2017. [3]
From 2000 to 2009, more than 13,000 French Jews made aliyah, largely as a result of growing antisemitism in the country. A peak was reached in 2005, with 2,951 olim. However, between 20–30% eventually returned to France. [4] After the election of Nicolas Sarkozy, French aliyah dropped due to the Jewish community's comfort with him. In 2010 only 1,286 French Jews made aliyah. [5]
By 2012, some 200,000 French citizens lived in Israel. [1] During the same year, following the election of François Hollande and the Jewish school shooting in Toulouse, as well as ongoing acts of anti-semitism and the European economic crisis, an increasing number of French Jews began buying property in Israel. [6] In August 2012, it was reported that anti-semitic attacks had risen by 40% in the five months following the Toulouse shooting, and that many French Jews were seriously considering immigrating to Israel. [7] In 2013, 3,120 French Jews immigrated to Israel, marking a 63% increase over the previous year. [8] In the first two months of 2014, French Jewish aliyah increased precipitously by 312% with 854 French Jews making aliyah over the first two months. Immigration from France throughout 2014 has been attributed to several factors, of which includes increasing antisemitism, in which many Jews have been harassed and attacked by a fusillade of local thugs and gangs, a stagnant European economy and concomitant high youth unemployment rates. [9] [10] [11] [12]
During the first few months of 2014, The Jewish Agency of Israel has continued to encourage an increase of French aliyah through aliyah fairs, Hebrew-language courses, sessions which assist in potential olim to find jobs in Israel, and immigrant absorption in Israel. [13] A May 2014 survey revealed that 74 percent of French Jews consider leaving France for Israel where of the 74 percent, 29.9 percent cited anti-Semitism. Another 24.4 cited their desire to "preserve their Judaism," while 12.4 percent said they were attracted by other countries. "Economic considerations" was cited by 7.5 percent of the respondents. [14] By June 2014, it was estimated by the end of 2014 a full 1 percent of the French Jewish community will have made aliyah to Israel, the largest in a single year. Many Jewish leaders stated the emigration is being driven by a combination of factors, including the cultural gravitation towards Israel and France's economic woes, especially for the younger generation drawn by the possibility of other socioeconomic opportunities in the more vibrant Israeli economy. [15] [16] During the Hebrew year 5774 (September 2013 - September 2014) for the first time ever, more Jews made Aliyah from France than any other country, with approximately 6,000 French Jews making aliyah, mainly fleeing rampant antisemitism, pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist violence and economic malaise with France becoming the top sending country for aliyah as of late September 2014. [17] [18]
In January 2015, events such as the Charlie Hebdo shooting and Porte de Vincennes hostage crisis created a shock wave of fear across the French Jewish community. As a result of these events, the Jewish Agency created an aliyah plan for 120,000 French Jews who wish to make aliyah. [19] [20] In addition, with Europe's stagnant economy as of early 2015, many affluent French Jewish skilled professionals, businesspeople and investors have sought Israel as a start-up haven for international investments, as well as job and new business opportunities. [21] In addition, Dov Maimon, a French Jewish émigré who studies migration as a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, expects as many as 250,000 French Jews to make aliyah by the year 2030. [21]
Hours after an attack and an ISIS flag was raised on a gas factory Saint-Quentin-Fallavier attack near Lyon where the severed head of a local businessman was pinned to the gates on June 26, 2015, Immigration and Absorption Minister Ze’ev Elkin strongly urged the French Jewish community to move to Israel and made it a national priority for Israel to welcome the French Jewish community with open arms. [22] [23] Immigration from France is on the rise: in the first half of 2015, approximately 5,100 French Jews made aliyah to Israel marking 25% more than in the same period during the previous year. [24]
With the November 2015 Paris attacks committed by suspected ISIS affiliates in retaliation for Opération Chammal, some Israeli media sources claimed more than 80 percent of French Jews are considering making aliyah while others noted that French Jews realized that not just Jews but French people in general were now indiscriminate targets of jihadist terrorism. [25] [26] [27] In 2015, a total of 7,835 French people moved to Israel. [28] This dropped to about 5,200 in 2016 and 3,500 in 2017. [29] [30] In 2019, 2227 people immigrated from France, a 7.8% decrease from the 2018 immigration figure of 2416 total immigrants. [31] [32]
The history of the Jews in Russia and areas historically connected with it goes back at least 1,500 years. Jews in Russia have historically constituted a large religious and ethnic diaspora; the Russian Empire at one time hosted the largest population of Jews in the world. Within these territories, the primarily Ashkenazi Jewish communities of many different areas flourished and developed many of modern Judaism's most distinctive theological and cultural traditions, while also facing periods of antisemitic discriminatory policies and persecution, including violent pogroms.
The Jewish Agency for Israel, formerly known as the Jewish Agency for Palestine, is the largest Jewish non-profit organization in the world. It was established in 1929 as the operative branch of the World Zionist Organization (WZO).
Aliyah is the immigration of Jews from the diaspora to, historically, the geographical Land of Israel or the Palestine region, which is today chiefly represented by the State of Israel. Traditionally described as "the act of going up", moving to the Land of Israel or "making aliyah" is one of the most basic tenets of Zionism. The opposite action – emigration by Jews from the Land of Israel – is referred to in the Hebrew language as yerida. The Law of Return that was passed by the Israeli parliament in 1950 gives all diaspora Jews, as well as their children and grandchildren, the right to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship on the basis of connecting to their Jewish identity.
The history of the Jews in France deals with Jews and Jewish communities in France since at least the Early Middle Ages. France was a centre of Jewish learning in the Middle Ages, but persecution increased over time, including multiple expulsions and returns. During the French Revolution in the late 18th century, on the other hand, France was the first European country to emancipate its Jewish population. Antisemitism still occurred in cycles and reached a high in the 1890s, as shown during the Dreyfus affair, and in the 1940s, under Nazi occupation and the Vichy regime.
Nefesh B'Nefesh, or Jewish Souls United, is a nonprofit organization, promotes, encourages and facilitates aliyah from the United States and Canada.
The history of Jews in Sweden can be traced from the 17th century, when their presence is verified in the baptism records of the Stockholm Cathedral. Several Jewish families were baptised into the Lutheran Church, a requirement for permission to settle in Sweden. In 1681, for example, 28 members of the families of Israel Mandel and Moses Jacob were baptised in the Stockholm German Church in the presence of King Charles XI of Sweden, the dowager queen Hedvig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, and several other high state officials.
The Fifth Aliyah refers to the fifth wave of the Jewish immigration to Palestine from Europe and Asia between the years 1929 and 1939, with the arrival of 225,000 to 300,000 Jews. The Fifth Aliyah, or fifth immigration wave, began after the comeback from the 1927 economic crisis in Mandatory Palestine and the 1929 Palestine riots, during the period of the Fourth Aliyah.
In the years leading up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 and for just over a decade thereafter, a particularly large number of Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union and the post-Soviet countries. The majority of these emigrants made aliyah, while a sizable amount immigrated to various Western countries. This wave of Jewish migration followed the 1970s Soviet aliyah, which began after the Soviet government lifted the ban on the country's refuseniks, most of whom were Jews who had been denied permission to leave the country.
Israeli Jews or Jewish Israelis comprise Israel's largest ethnic and religious community. The core of their demographic consists of those with a Jewish identity and their descendants, including ethnic Jews and religious Jews alike. Approximately 99% of the global Israeli Jewish population resides in Israel; yerida is uncommon and is offset exponentially by aliyah, but those who do emigrate from the country typically relocate to the Western world. As such, the Israeli diaspora is closely tied to the broader Jewish diaspora.
Historians continue to study and debate the extent of antisemitism in American history and how American antisemitism has similarities and distinctions with its European counterpart.
Antisemitism, the prejudice or discrimination against Jews, has had a long history since the ancient times. While antisemitism had already been prevalent in ancient Greece and Roman Empire, its institutionalization in European Christianity after the destruction of the ancient Jewish cultural center in Jerusalem caused two millennia of segregation, expulsions, persecutions, pogroms, genocides of Jews, which culminated in the 20th-century Holocaust in Nazi German-occupied European states, where 67% European Jews were murdered.
Antisemitic incidents escalated worldwide in frequency and intensity during the Gaza War, and were widely considered to be a wave of reprisal attacks in response to the conflict.
Antony Lerman is a British writer who specialises in the study of antisemitism, the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, multiculturalism, and the place of religion in society. From 2006 to early 2009, he was Director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, a think tank on issues affecting Jewish communities in Europe. From December 1999 to 2006, he was Chief Executive of the Hanadiv Charitable Foundation, renamed the Rothschild Foundation Europe in 2007. He is a founding member of the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights, and a former editor of Patterns of Prejudice, a quarterly academic journal focusing on the sociology of race and ethnicity.
Racism in Israel encompasses all forms and manifestations of racism experienced in Israel, irrespective of the colour or creed of the perpetrator and victim, or their citizenship, residency, or visitor status. More specifically in the Israeli context, racism in Israel refers to racism directed against Israeli Arabs by Israeli Jews, intra-Jewish racism between the various Jewish ethnic divisions, historic and current racism towards Mizrahi Jews although some believe the dynamics have reversed, and racism on the part of Israeli Arabs against Israeli Jews.
Ethiopian Jews in Israel are immigrants and descendants of the immigrants from the Beta Israel communities in Ethiopia who now reside in Israel. To a lesser, but notable, extent, the Ethiopian Jewish community in Israel is also composed of Falash Mura, a community of Beta Israel which had converted to Christianity over the course of the past two centuries, but were permitted to immigrate to Israel upon returning to Israelite religion—this time largely to Rabbinic Judaism.
The Jewish community in Sweden has been prevalent since the 18th century. Today Sweden has a Jewish community of around 20,000, which makes it the 7th largest in the European Union. Antisemitism in historical Sweden primarily manifested as the confiscation of property, restrictions on movement and employment, and forced conversion to Christianity. Antisemitism in present-day Sweden is mainly perpetrated by far-right politicians, neo-Nazis, and Islamists.
Australian Jews in Israel refers to Australian-born individuals of Jewish descent, who have emigrated to Israel. Jews understand Aliyah to be a spiritual journey as a result of their emotional connection to the land of their people. Since 1950, when the Law of Return was passed by the Israeli Knesset (parliament), diasporic Jews have been given legal provisions to acquire citizenship in Israel based on their Jewish heritage. The total population of Israel, as of December 2019, was 9,316,000 and, according to the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, there were roughly 10,000–12,000 Australians living in Israel, suggested by data from the most recent census that was held in 2016.
Antisemitism in France has become heightened since the late 20th century and into the 21st century. In the early 21st century, most Jews in France, like most Muslims in France, are of North African origin. France has the largest population of Jews in the diaspora after the United States—an estimated 500,000–600,000 persons. Paris has the highest population, followed by Marseilles, which has 70,000 Jews. Expressions of antisemitism were seen to rise during the Six-Day War of 1967 and the French anti-Zionist campaign of the 1970s and 1980s. Following the electoral successes achieved by the extreme right-wing National Front and an increasing denial of the Holocaust among some persons in the 1990s, surveys showed an increase in stereotypical antisemitic beliefs among the general French population.
Antisemitism in Greece manifests itself in religious, political and media discourse. The 2009–2018 Greek government-debt crisis has facilitated the rise of far right groups in Greece, most notably the formerly obscure Golden Dawn.
Antisemitism is a growing problem in 21st-century Germany.
