More than 200 French Jews will arrive in Israel this Wednesday (July 20). This is the largest Aliyah flight from France set to land in Israel this summer. Half of the new immigrants are teenagers, children, and toddlers who will join the Israeli education system at the end of the summer vacation. The immigrants also include several families in which three generations—grandparents, parents, and children—will be making Aliyah together. The majority of the immigrants will make their homes in Netanya, Raanana, Jerusalem, and Ashdod. The flight was planned months ago, without any connection to recent events in France.
The French Jewish community is the largest in Europe and the second-largest in the world outside of Israel, numbering just under half a million Jews. French Jewish immigration to Israel has surged since the year 2012, breaking records for Aliyah from France and from Western countries more generally.
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2014 marked the first time in Israel’s history that over 1% of a Western Jewish community made Aliyah in a single year, an achievement repeated in 2015, with the arrival of some 7, 800 immigrants from France – the most ever. In total, nearly 10% of the French Jewish community has immigrated to Israel since the year 2000, half in the past five years alone.
“French Jews who immigrate to Israel are coming out of choice: they have a whole world of opportunities before them, and they are choosing to come to Israel.”, said Natan Sharansky, Chairman of The Jewish Agency for Israel. “Their choice is demonstrates that Israel affords a sense of Jewish identity and attachment to those Jews who wish to take an active part in the Jewish story. We must do everything we can to ease their professional, educational, and personal integration into Israeli society and ensure that they feel at home from the moment they first set foot on our homeland’s soil.”
Minister of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption Sofa Landver said: “In light of the difficult weekend in Nice, I wish to welcome the immigrants from France who chose to immigrate to Israel now. French Aliyah strengthens Israel.”
