Netanyahu steps up appeal to French Jews after attacks

This week’s deadly jihadist attacks have again set off a competition between the French and Israeli governments to reassure and secure the affection of France’s increasingly nervous Jewish population. Not for the first time, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu used an attack by Islamic extremists in France to urge the country’s Jews to relocate. Responding from outside the Jewish supermarket in Paris where four hostages died on Friday, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls sought to counter Netanyahu’s words: “France, without its Jews, is not France.” President Francois Hollande met leaders of the French Jewish community at the Elysee Palace on Sunday morning where he vowed to protect Jewish schools and synagogues with the army if necessary.

To all the Jews of France, all the Jews of Europe, I would like to say that Israel is not just the place in whose direction you pray, the state of Israel is your home.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The Israeli prime minister has tried to lure France’s Jews to his country on a previous occasion, following attacks by Islamist Mohamed Merah in and around Toulouse in southwest France in March 2012. Israel expects the number of French Jews moving there this year, which was already predicted to rise sharply from 2014’s record level, to accelerate further after the killings at a Paris kosher grocery, a senior official said on Sunday. Natan Sharansky, head of the Jewish Agency promoting emigration to Israel, said his estimate for 2015 was 10,000 French immigrants, after 3,300 in 2013 and 7,000 last year.

Europe