Over 10,000 French Jews Migrating To Israel After Killings In France

Monica Cantilero Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (L), Mali's President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (2nd L), French President Francois Hollande (C), Germany's Chancellor Angela Merke (4th L), European Council President Donald Tusk (5th L) and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas attend a solidarity march in the streets of Paris on Jan. 11, 2015. | REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer

Israel expects the migration of more than 10,000 French Jews this year, an upward trend over the years that is seen to further accelerate amid the killings at a kosher grocery store in Paris, according to a senior government official.

"It will probably be much more than 10,000," Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency, told Reuters following a meeting in Paris for French Jews considering emigration. The event was attended by about 700 Jews, according to Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Liebermann.

Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have long encouraged French Jewish emigration.

Last year, 7,000 French immigrants transferred to Israel, more than twice the 3,300 who moved there in 2013.

The same period also saw anti-Semitic threats and incidents increase by more than twice, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

In a statement on Saturday, Netanyahu said an Israeli governmental committee would convene in the coming week to seek ways to boost Jewish immigration from France and other European countries which he described as "being hit by terrible anti-Semitism."

The Israeli Prime Minister flew with Sharansky and Lierbermann for the mass protest on Sunday that commemorated the 17 victims of Islamist militant attacks, particularly the assault on satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday and a hostage-taking in a Jewish shop on Friday. The march was attended by over a million French and world leaders, including Muslim and Jewish government officials.

They also attended a memorial service for the victims at the Paris Grand Synagogue, with President Francois Hollande and Prime Minister Manuel Valls of France joining them.

Hollande was said to have promised army protection if needed for Jewish institutions in France.

"They told us that all schools and all synagogues will be protected in measures that, if necessary, extend beyond the police to the army," said Roger Cukierman, head of the CRIF umbrella group of French Jewish organizations.

According to CRIF, France has some 550,000 Jews, the largest Jewish population in Europe.