With one hand on a suitcase, French Jews seek an Israel connection

 

The half million or so Jews in France may not be coming to Israel tomorrow, but with a rise in anti-Semitism in recent years they may find themselves having no choice but to emigrate later, if not sooner. But those who decide to stay in France still want to engage with Israel – if not by living there, then economically.

 

“There’s a reason so many French Jews are buying real estate in Israel,” Roger Cukierman told the Times of Israel. “Many French Jews of means have been planning aliyah for years. Some 20,000 have come to Israeli in the past few years, and many have bought homes here.”

 

Cukierman knows French Jewry as well as anyone possibly can. The 79-year old Cukierman serves as president of the Conseil Représentatif des Institutions Juives de France (CRIF), the umbrella group that represents most Jewish groups in France. He is also a Vice President of the World Jewish Congress.

 

Cukierman was in Israel for the annual Go4Israel conference in Tel Aviv, which is organized and sponsored by the investment firm Cukierman & Co., headed by Edouard Cukierman – son of Roger Cukierman, and one of Israel’s leading investors in Europe and China...

 

France’s desire to partner with Israeli start-ups doesn’t make French Jews safer, said Roger Cukierman. “Jews have been in France for 2,000 years, and we have an illustrious history… But now we feel like second class citizens, protected by the police and the army.”

 

The straws that broke the anti-Semitic camel’s back, of course, were the 2012 attacks on the Ozar Hatorah Jewish day school in Toulouse, in which four people, including three children, were killed, and the January 2015 siege and murders at the Hyper Cacher in Paris, which saw four Jewish hostages murdered.

 

But those were just the tip of the iceberg, said Cukierman. “We have annually 1,000 reported acts of violence against Jews, mostly by Muslims, and it is likely there are more that go unreported. Jews no longer send their children to public school, out of fear of violence – choosing to pay at Jewish day schools, private secular schools and even Christian schools, which often are the only private schools with space”... Read more.