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Roger Cukierman, head of CRIF, the umbrella group of France's Jewish organizations, is worried by anti-Semitic attacks, "but we have to keep calm and not panic."
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| By Ellis Shuman June 14, 2004 |
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Roger Cukierman, the head of CRIF, the umbrella group of France's Jewish organizations, expressed shock at media reports stating that the Israeli government and the Jewish Agency planned an intensive campaign to persuade French Jews to emigrate to Israel. A recent survey found that some 6% of French Jews expressed willingness to come to Israel because of rising anti-Semitism.
On Friday, 17-year-old yeshiva student Yisrael Yifrah was stabbed in his north Paris neighborhood by a Muslim man who punctuated the act with the cry "Allahu Akhbar." French Prime Minister Jean Pierre Raffarin and other French leaders expressed their disgust at the attempted murder.
When the prime minister visited the Yifrah family, Yisrael's father turned to Raffarin and said: "I regret emigrating to France. When we left Morocco I never imagined that one of my children would be lying in the hospital because of a Muslim who sought to kill a Jew."
Cukierman said France's 600,000-strong Jewish community, Europe's largest, was worried by anti-Semitic attacks, especially on children, "but we have to keep calm and not panic," Reuters reported.
Cukierman's son Eduard, who made aliya 20 years ago, told Maariv that he wanted to ask his father, leader of French Jewry, "when would he stand before his community and say the time has come to move to Israel? Would this be when Jews are murdered in the streets of Paris?"
"Government taking firm stand against anti-Semitism"
The French government reported last week it had counted 180 incidents of attacks or threats against Jewish people or property from the start of this year until early June.
Cukierman defended the French government, saying it was taking a firm stand against anti-Semitism, and said two-thirds of those detained for violence against Jews were minors.
"We hope that with sanctions and education, we'll get a de-escalation of anti-Semitism," he said. "We hope we can convince (the detainees) to return to respecting other people."
Cukierman said he was "surprised and shocked" at a report in Maariv yesterday stating that the Jewish Agency had decided to send several hundred agents to France to persuade tens of thousands of French Jews to emigrate because of rising anti-Semitic attacks in recent years.
"I do not appreciate at all that they have bypassed the Jewish organizations in France. I plan to protest to the Israeli ambassador in Paris," Cukierman told Europe 1 radio.
"Atmosphere for aliya is ripe in France"
According to the Maariv report, a meeting discussing the proposed aliya campaign was held recently and was attended by Immigration Affairs Minister Tzipi Livni, the Director-General of the Prime Minister's Office Ilan Cohen, and Jewish Agency Chairman Salai Meridor. The head of the Jewish Agency's Paris delegation Menahem Gur-Ari said during the meeting that in a survey recently conducted in Paris, about 6% of Jews (some 30,000 French Jews) expressed willingness to come to Israel because of rising anti-Semitism and the feeling of lack of personal safety for their children in the future.
"The atmosphere for aliya (immigration) is ripe in France," Jewish Agency director in Paris, Oliver Rafowicz, told Maariv. "This year we expect over 3,000 (immigrants). We know of more and more Jews who think of leaving France," he said.
The Jerusalem Post said the survey was conducted by Dr. Erik Cohen, an expert on French Jewry at Bar-Ilan University. Commissioned by the Jewish Agency, the United Jewish Appeal of France, and the French Jewish organization Fonds Social, it also found that another 36% of French Jews said that if they were forced to leave France, they would consider moving to Israel.
"It is the first time we are putting together a special program for French Jews," Jewish Agency Immigration and Absorption Committee chairman Arieh Azoulay told the Jerusalem Post. "We have to make efforts to attract [French Jews] and give them opportunities, since it is not just important to make aliya, it is important to make a successful absorption," he said. "Most importantly, we need to send them the message that all of Israeli society - and not just the Jewish Agency - wants to welcome them and give them help."
"I don't see French Jewry leaving overnight"
Jonathan Arfi, chairman of the French Jewish Student Association told Haaretz that he was astonished to hear that the Jewish Agency is planning to bring tens of thousands of Jews to Israel to supposedly save them from the terrors of anti-Semitism.
"That's hardly serious," he added, Haaretz reported. "I really don't see French Jewry leaving the country overnight. In the past three years only 2,000 to 3,000 Jews moved to Israel each year, out of the 600,000 living in France, and I see no reason why that number should rise."
Arfi, like many in the Jewish community, admits that tensions have increased in the past year, and the sense of insecurity has grown. "But from that to a mass exodus of Jews to Israel, the distance is enormous," he emphasized.
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