“NEXT YEAR IN JERUSALEM”

- WHY EUROPEAN JEWS CHOOSE TO LIVE IN ISRAEL TODAY -

French Jews have been the number one immigrant group in Israel in the last years, counting nearly 20.000 new immigrants between 2014 and 2016, a peak in recent history. At the same time Hungary is facing a constant rise in right wing extremism since more than a decade – regardlessly only very few Hungarian Jews emigrate to Israel. Each Jewish community is respectively the largest in Western and Eastern Europe. Roughly estimated France is home to 500.000 Jews, Hungary counts 80.000 to 90.000. These facts and developments led me to the story about European Jews who have chosen Israel as their new home in the recent years.

The Nyitrai family - Aliyah in July 2016

FLIGHT FROM HUNGARY TO ISRAEL – July 2016: The Nyitrai family on their immigration flight from Budapest to Tel Aviv. Ben, 13, and his parents Smuel, 62, and Vero, 47, have just left everything they had in Hungary, with a tear in one eye and a smile in the other. „There wasn’t any triggering moment for us to decide to leave for Israel – it was a long developing process - but there was a triggering moment that let us decide to never come back to Hungary. That was the migration crisis. It is not important what is my opinion of this conflict, but the mood, the method of "resolving" this problem… the majority of the population started to hate the immigrants. It's a real hate. This nation never faced its sin, its crime, rather it claims others that everything is wrong. These people might need only two weeks to hate again the Jews, its enough. So we leave this country.“

Hover the mouse over the images to discover the personal stories!

IS IT ANTISEMITISM?

My leading question throughout this journey was: is the rise of antisemitism pushing European Jews away (again)? Some say yes, some say no, and the truth lies in between. For many people it plays a role and it’s an issue one should keep an eye on. Moreover, Islamistic terrorism in Europe, especially in France, frequently targeting the Jewish community, clearly not only but too, is terrifying each one of us. The turning point for the French community was the assault at a Jewish school in Toulouse in March 2012 killing three children and a teacher, or even earlier in 2006 when Ilan Halimi was kidnapped and killed by torture. A cruel crime motivated by antisemitism.

Despite the Hungarian swing to the right, only about 150 Hungarian Jews per year make Aliyah (the expression in Hebrew for the immigration of Jews to Israel). No rising numbers. Why are the numbers of French and Hungarians so wide apart? One out of many differences is that the Jewish community in Budapest isn’t facing any violent attacks such as Paris. Superficially regarded, one is quickly attempted to draw the conclusion that the high numbers of French emigrants might result from the rise of radical Islamism and antisemitism, and true, it has the effect of an accelerant of a longer-lasting process – but it goes deeper than that.

Sarah Blum - Aliyah in March 2012

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - August 2016: Sarah Blum, 31, grew up in Alsace and moved from Paris to Jerusalem in 2008 to study Human Rights Law at the Hebrew University. That time she felt an urgend need for change. At home she learned that being Jewish is something you live at home, quietly. She came to Israel with the urge to experience being part of a majority, and a nagging question about her identity that seeked an answer. In March 2012 she finally made Aliya, holding an Israeli passport in her hands. In October 2015 Sarah was nearly stabbed by a terrorist in Jerusalem. Still, she feels safer living in Israel than in Europe. „People know how to react, they intervene immediately instead of being freezed by the shock.“ That is what saved her life, she says. The first ones to call her after the attack were her Palestinian friends to check if she is ok.

Balázs & Orsolya Szabó - Aliyah in December 2012

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - July 2016: Balázs Szabó, 39, and his wife Orsolya, 33, from Budapest decided to leave Hungary the moment the director of the New Theater in Budapest was replaced by a rightist Neo-Nazi, as they say. That marked a turning point for them, they moved to Israel in December 2012 rather spontanously. Considering their possibilities they thought about trying it in Germany or Sweden, too, but it would have been more difficult concerning work and the right of residence. And then, the weather – too cold! Since they already would make that big step, they wanted to improve and preferred a sunny, warm climate. To save money in the beginning they were living at a Merkaz Klita, a very basic, cheap housing units offered by the Jewish Agency for new immigrants. „The first years in Israel were very hard, I couldn’t work for two years and you have to sacrifice a lot“ Orsolya says. „Today I feel at home here, much more than in Hungary. But not many are tough enough to pull through, most people give it up after two years.“

Péter Makádi – Aliyah in April 2014

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - August 2016: Péter Makádi, 25, from Székesfehérvár, a city located one hour from Budapest in Hungary, says „Anti-Semitism wouldn't make me leave the country, it’s the people. And there is no future, no chance to step up the ladder“. At the age of 19 he did a Taglit trip, a sponsored ten-day trip to Israel for young adults of Jewish heritage. This promoting event sparked off the idea for the first time that Israel might be an option for him, someday. After breaking up with his girlfriend and being fed up since a long time of the mistrusting and grudging mentality of many Hungarians, he left and moved to Israel in 2014. He decided to serve as a lone soldier in Israel for one year. The warmth of the people, the integration programms and tax discounts helped him a lot to make a new start.

Jonathan Aflalo - Aliyah in Mai 2014

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - July 2016: Jonathan Aflalo, 31, born in Paris, is a sephardic Jew like the majority of the French Jewish community. His parents were born in Morocco, his grandparents in Spain – the roots don’t go deep. He moved to Israel in 2009 to do his Ph.D. in Computer Science and Mathematics in Haifa, which he finished in 2013. By that time most of his friends already had left France, and he felt at home in Israel. He decided to stay and to immigrate officially in 2014. „I cherish the quality of live in Israel, every morning I am happy to wake up. I have a great job here, it pays good money, the beach is close. The high-tech industry is super professional and super cool same time. The French just don’t move on – they hardly speak English! On the other side, the Israelis are unpatient, rude and unpolite, that’s very different from the French behaviour and one needs to get used to their ‚efficiency’ of communication. I am trying to take the best of both – to be cool and not aggressive.“ Jonathan is definitely not going back to France, but keeps his French identity and culture up.

Aviva Szmukler - Aliyah in March 2016

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - August 2016: Aviva Szmukler, 26, immigrated in March 2016 from France to Israel. Before, in September 2015, she took part in the popular Masa program for young Jews interested in a career in Israel. She grew up in Strasbourg, her father is a Paris-born Israeli. „In Strasbourg we don’t have a lot of problems with antisemitism. There is some but I never felt that. The main reason was about to open opportunities. It was about friends, about to meet a boyfriend, and also about work. It was not about Zionism.“ Asking her if she can imagine to go back to France she says „No. It’s like a divorce. You did everything you can, you did your best, and when it still doesn’t work, there is no other choice than divorce.“ Aviva and Adam, 24, have met in Israel on a shabbat dinner with friends. Adam is from Paris and is studies at the Technion in Haifa. They are going marry in summer 2017.

Michael Lumbroso - Aliyah in February 2015

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - AUGUST 17, 2016: Michael Lumbroso, 27, immigrated in February 2015 to Israel from a calm and upper-class suburb of Paris, France. As a start-up founder he says the general atmosphere in France is not encouraging to take risks, which is the opposite in Israel. Other reasons for him to live in Israel are his family and zionism.

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - August 2016: Jeffrey Orlik, 22, moved in July 2013 to Jerusalem from Paris, France, to study at the largest francophone yeshiva Beith Halevy in Jerusalem.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – July 14, 2016: While the celebrations of the French national holiday Bastille Day took place at the beach in Tel Aviv, a terrorist attack was happening in Nice, France, killing 86 people and injuring 434. — TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – July 14, 2016: While the celebrations of the French national holiday Bastille Day took place at the beach in Tel Aviv, a terrorist attack was happening in Nice, France, killing 86 people and injuring 434.

WHY ISRAEL?

There is a broad spectrum of triggering main motives for Jews to leave Europe and to start a new life in Israel, and it’s a mix of push and pull factors. In many but not all cases, antisemitism is a supporting piece of a unique puzzle of motivations. It makes it easier to leave when you feel you are not welcome.

Israel offers great career opportunities in the high-tech industry, compared to France or Hungary, and it’s by far not only Jews that are pushed to leave because of the economic crisis in both countries. The French specifically have long-time family bonds in Israel as the majority of the French-speaking sephardic Jews from Morocco, Tunisia or Algeria left their home countries in the 1950s and 1960s to start a new live in France, Israel or Canada. Some are coming to Israel to be closer to their religious roots. Others wish to broaden their opportunities of life, or they feel a nagging question about their identity that seeks an answer and want to be part of a majority once. And sometimes it’s quite unspectacular reasons like the mediterranean climate that make people choose Israel.

What all of them have in common is a feeling of being protected and of being home. Same as the feeling of a higher quality of life, despite the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that you don't feel much in Tel Aviv or cities like Netanya. It's a different world. The swap of mentalities makes a huge difference in everyday life – the grim, narrow-minded, backward mentality in France or Hungary is replaced by the assertive, life-affirming and pushing character of the (Telavivian) Israelis.

Whatever the reasons are, the State of Israel is offering considerately its wide, wide open arms to all of them. The governmental support is enormous and exceptional to maintain a Jewish, tax-paying, military-serving majority in Israel, since the demographic future is alarming. From the Jewish point of view.

Gaëlle Soussan - Aliyah in January 2015

NETANYA, ISRAEL - August 2016: Gaëlle Soussan, 25, moved from Paris to Israel in January 2015. „The atmosphere for Jews was very bad in Paris the last year. I remember it was in August, maybe two or three years ago, there were some demonstrations against Israel and it was very violent – people were screaming ‚Death to Jews’. It’s crazy, we are living in 21st century and you can’t go out, you feel very bad and insecure. Most of them are ultra left and very extremist muslims. They want to fight with you, but they don’t want to speak with you. Here in Israel I am working together with Palestinians, they are very good friends and it works well. Basically it's 2 % of the muslim population that is destroying everything and causing a very bad reputation.“ Today Gaëlle is living in Tel Aviv with her Israeli husband, and working in marketing at HP. At the beginning she was living with her grandparents in Netanya, who settled permanently a year earlier in 2014. Her sister followed her shortly after. Her parents, born in Morocco, are yet in Paris but want to move to Israel for retirement.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL – JULY 14, 2016: While the celebrations of the French national holiday Bastille Day took place at the beach in Tel Aviv, a terrorist attack was happening in Nice, France, killing 86 people and injuring 434.

NETANYA, ISRAEL - AUGUST 22, 2016

BAT YAM, ISRAEL - AUGUST 08, 2016

The Garcini family - Aliyah in August 2016

BAT YAM, ISRAEL - August 2016: The Garcini family has arrived in Israel a week ago from Paris. Yael, 44, the mother says „We love Israel, our religious roots are here, and we have family here. In France I felt seperated. I don’t feel French anymore but I loved France. There we can’t say we are Jewish, it’s difficult. We feel different. My brother has moved to Israel in 1997, since then we started to discover the country and we linked to it more and more and more. Why not live here? We have our country.“ The main difficulty for the family is to find work, but there is a lot of support for the olim (Jewish immigrants in Israel), such as a subside for the rent for the first 5 months, just to name one out of many. „It’s important to learn the language quickly, in Israel an employer can kick you out very easily.“ says Tsion, 49, Yael’s husband. Since they are now in Israel they changed their French first names Frederique and Laurent to their Jewish first names. The Garcini’s started to take Hebrew lessons already in France, paying on their own. In Israel Jewish immigrants have five months of free classes of Hebrew at the ulpan, the language school for Hebrew.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - AUGUST 26, 2016: French Café Paulette opened in May 2016

Jeffrey Orlik - Aliyah in July 2013

JERUSALEM, ISRAEL - August 2016: Jeffrey Orlik, 22, came to Jerusalem in July 2013 to study at the biggest francophone yeshiva called Beith Halevy, accomodating 50 orthodox students. Jeffrey is the only orthodox Jew in his family. Born in Paris he didn’t want to leave France and still feels very French, but sees his future in Jerusalem. „In the past I came here to Israel for holidays and I saw how people live here. I saw that for an observant Jew it’s more convenient to practice religion. Jerusalem is a spiritual and holy place. Here it was the first time that I saw people in the streets with kippah, the tzitzit and all this – it was very special and very interesting for me. I felt that it’s our country, that we have to be here.“ Jeffrey came to Jerusalem for his time when he was 16. It was on a school trip, he went to a Jewish school, visiting a concentration camp in Poland and flying directly from there to Jerusalem. From 9 AM until 11 PM the yeshiva students study religious texts and prayers from the Talmud and the Thora. Every week they have a test. The bedrooms are shared with up to five or six young men, without AC and only cold water.

HUNGARY

Smuel Nyitrai, 62: „There wasn’t any triggering moment for us to decide to leave for Israel – it was a long developing process - but there was a triggering moment that let us decide to never come back to Hungary. That was the migration crisis. It is not important what is my opinion of this conflict, but the mood, the method of “resolving” this problem... the majority of the population started to hate the immigrants. It’s a real hate. This nation never faced its sin, its crime, rather it claims others that everything is wrong. These people might need only two weeks to hate again the Jews, its enough. So we leave this country.“

Pictures below:

October 23, 2015: A young boy holds a fire lit torch on a march in Budapest, organized by Jobbik members and supporters. Jobbik is Hungary’s extreme right-wing party and the third largest party in the National Assembly. Jobbik supporters are celebrating the national holiday of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, walking through the city of Budapest without any counter demonstrations along the path.

On this march geographical maps are for sale. They show the former territory of ‚The Kingdom of Hungary‘ before the Treaty of Trianon of 1920, a peace agreement between the allies of World War I and the Kingdom of Hungary, which was three times bigger than today’s size of the country. Radical nationalists call for a return to pre-Treaty of Trianon borders.

FRANCE

Anti-Semitism in Europe is spreading and increasingly in form of attacks. France has suffered the worst violence and the numbers prove the trend of a new Jewish emigration wave. A survey published in November 2013 by the EU Fundamental Rights Agency shows that in the last five years 46% of French Jews (29% of European Jews) had considered to emigrate because they did not feel safe. 74% of French respondents (76% of European Jews) say that anti-Semitism had increased a lot in the last five years in their home region. The highest degradation values in Europe are from France, Belgium, Hungary, Poland and Sweden.

In 2011 and 2012 less than 2,000 French Jews emigrated to Israel. In 2013, the year after the Toulouse attack, 3,289 left. 2014 there were already 7,000 who left the country and 10 - 15,000 expected for 2015. Are Jews leaving Europe out of fear? What are the reasons in each country for the reinvigorating anti-Semitism? How do the images from the 1930’ies compare with those of today? Has the Jihadism become the new Nazism? Where does Anti-Semitism begin, where Israel-criticism?

FRANCE, PARIS - JANUARY 09, 2015: Heavily armed police men are securing the streets near the Jewish kosher supermarket Hyper Cachet on the eastern edge of Paris near Porte de Vincennes, while a hostage situation is on-going on a Friday afternoon at the beginning of shabbat. Four Jewish hostages are killed in the assault happening two days after the deadly attacks at Charlie Hebdo. The victims are buried in Jerusalem, Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and other public figures attended the funeral ceremony.

PARIS, FRANCE - FEBRUARY 12, 2015: During a „Marche silencieuse” one month after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, Jewish citizens are mourning Ilan Halimi (†2006) and the victims of radical Islamist terror attacks, such as in Toulouse in 2012, the Jewish Museum in Brussels in 2014, at Charlie Hebdo and the Hyper cacher in Paris in 2015.

FRANCE, PARIS - AUGUST 13, 2015: „Tel Aviv sur Seine“, a onetime event in Paris celebrating the Israeli city with a makeshift beach, provoked a petition by a pro-Palestinian group addressing the mayor of Paris to revoke this event. Nearly 25.000 voted against it within a few days, 500 police officers were deployed, since a protesting counter-event called „Gaza Plage“ was set up. The banks of the Seine were devided in two, separated by the police, disconcertingly mirroring the situation in Israel and the Gaza Strip – Tel Aviv dancing, Gaza bleeding. Cheek by jowl.

The attacks in Paris in January 2015 have proved that this issue is of current relevance and needs more awareness. There are many Jews who simply feel abandoned by French government, society and media and don’t see any improvements. Jewish people are leaving France discreetly, mainly because they fear retaliation.

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - August 25, 2016: Fabien Serna Ostrowsky from Lyon

TEL AVIV, ISRAEL - August 20, 2016: The Tel Aviv International Synagogue.

THE LAW OF RETURN

The so called "Law of Return" passed in 1950 by the State of Israel gives Jews from all over the world, their descendants and spouses automatic rights regarding residency and Israeli citizenship. Palestinians living in the occupied territories – the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip – who are born on this piece of land, are confronted with rigorous restrictions of movement in Israel.