“Some felt very helpless and wanted to go to Israel to help in one way or another. For my part, I would also have liked to leave,” confides Claire*, a young woman of 31. As I am pregnant and already with an 18 month old child, I told myself that I would be more of a burden than anything else, but I thought about it.” The reaction may seem counterintuitive: since the attack carried out by Hamas against Israel on October 7, many members of the French Jewish community have inquired about making aliyah – to “go up” to Israel and settle there. According to figures provided by the Israeli Ministry of Aliyah and Integration, the number of aliyah files filed in France has increased by 430% since the attack, involving 1,200 people compared to 220 the previous year.
This renewed interest in emigration to Israel – although in decline since the start of 2023 – is far from the figures of previous years: in 2015, for example, 7,900 people left France to live there. . But it illustrates the central place that Israel occupies in the imagination of the Jewish community. Despite the war and the instability, despite the cost of living, too, the country remains a refuge for French Jews. “As anti-Semitism has been gradually increasing for years in the world, it is necessarily a question that we ask ourselves: is there a future for Jews in France? Israel remains the only country where to say ‘dirty Jew’ simply means a Jew who doesn’t wash,” says Claire.
A different journey depending on the profile
As in Claire’s case, however, this reflection does not always translate into action. “The figure of 430% relates to an increase in people who are interested in the aliyah process. It does not necessarily mean that everyone will make it to the end,” explains Emmanuel Sion, director of the Jewish Agency in France, a public body responsible for of emigration to Israel. The route really depends on the profiles: a family will often take longer to decide than a student, for example, because they will have more ties.” In fact, the number of people who have actually emigrated over the past two months is counted in tens and not thousands.
According to historian and essayist Marc Knobel, 42 “olims” French (“immigrants”) were recorded in October and 55 in November. “It is still early to draw conclusions on a trend, especially for a process like emigration, which often takes several months. The thousand put forward by organizations like the Jewish Agency are only the opening of files, it is “that is to say requests for information, discussions. I myself have happened to submit a file, then give up”, underlines Marc Knobel, who continues: “However, we have sufficient perspective for the last twenty years : from 2000 to 2022, 68,437 French people came to Israel. This is an enormous figure, for a community of around 550,000 people.”
Fear of a rise in anti-Semitism
The reasons for these departures are multiple. The anxiety caused by anti-Semitic acts is one of them. After a checkered evolution in the 2000s, the aliyah figures experienced a sudden inflection in 2013, rising to 3,263 people, just after the massacre at the Ozar-Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse perpetrated by Mohamed Merah. This number doubled the following year to 7,200 people, before reaching a peak of 7,500 in 2015, the year of the attacks against the editorial staff of Charlie Hebdo, the Bataclan and the Hyper Cacher at the Porte de Vincennes. “Between 2014 and 2015, we were talking about a ‘shock aliyah’, clearly linked to the fear of attacks and anti-Semitism,” explains Itzhak Dahan, doctor in sociology and author of the study “Aliyah of the Jews of France in Israel (1968-2014)”.
The fear of a rise in anti-Semitism in France following the October 7 attack can thus partly explain the renewed interest in aliyah, while more than 1,500 anti-Semitic acts have been recorded in France. a month after the start of the Israel-Hamas war. In mid-November, L’Express reported that many French Jews had been forced to change their habits in the face of this increase, ranging from changing their names on social networks to the disappearance of religious signs in the street. “Here again, this is not new, notes Marc Knobel. From 2005, Joseph Haïm Sitruk [alors grand rabbin de France] had advised people to be careful and avoid wearing religious symbols like the yarmulke outside.”
High cost of living
Some people have chosen to emigrate to live their religion more publicly, in a “homogeneous environment”, as researchers Jean-Marc Dreyfus and Marc Hecker described in a column at Release in 2014. The desire to belong to the Israeli national project is also one of the reasons given. “There is a strong traditional Jewish community in France, many of which came from North Africa in the 1970s and 1980s,” adds Itzhak Dahan, who puts forward a hypothesis: “The latter demonstrates a strong attachment to the State of Israel and the events of October 7 could have been a signal of commitment, particularly alongside the army.”
The tremor observed since October, however, is part of a clearly declining trend. Between 2015 and 2016, the number of French Jewish immigrants fell from 7,500 to 5,100. In September 2023, the Jewish Agency counted 60% fewer new French immigrants between January and July compared to the same period of the year. former. The drop in anti-Semitic acts in France until October and a delicate political situation in Israel – giant demonstrations took place to protest against a judicial reform by the government of Benyamin Netanyahu, seen as an attack on the separation of powers – have dissuaded many French people from taking the necessary steps. Despite the financial aid provided by the Israeli government to immigrants, the economic situation also played a role. “Life is very expensive in Israel, notes Marc Knobel. This may have deterred some, notably elderly people who receive a French pension. And this even if the exchange rate of the shekel, the Israeli currency, has fallen in recent months .” According to data released by the OECD in August, in 2022, the cost of living in Israel was on average 38% higher than in the organization’s other countries.
“To this financial barrier is added that of language,” continues the historian. Even if immigration support is also put in place by the Israeli government, moving from one country to another is not simple. Some alyas are not definitive. But, often perceived as a failure by the individuals concerned, returns to France are difficult to count. No official data exists on the subject. “It is nevertheless estimated that 10 to 12% of French Jews who have made aliyah would be affected,” points out Itzhak Dahan.
* The first name has been changed.
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