This year’s figures for immigration to Israel from France are not yet in, as such statistics are not calculated according to the Hebrew calendar. But around 3,000 French Jews made aliyah during this summer alone.
In 2014, a total of 7,000 French Jews relocated to the Jewish state, with many of whom saying they felt safer in Israel even with rockets raining down from Gaza during Operation Protective Edge than they did in France. Violent anti-Zionist demonstrations in their neighborhoods, they said, were far more menacing than the instructions they received upon arrival at Ben-Gurion Airport on how to make it to a shelter at the sound of an air raid siren.
By the end of 2015, which kicked off in Paris with the Charlie Hebdo massacre and Hyper Cacher murders, the numbers are likely to be equally high.
When Prime Minister Netanyahu flew to the mass “unity rally” in the French capital in January in the wake of the above events, he was first criticized for attending at all, and then lambasted at home and abroad for reminding European Jews that they always have a home in Israel.