France: jamais dans le monde libre autant de Juifs n'ont fait leur alyah (Natan Sharansky)

Evoquant la France, Natan Sharansky a déclaré qu'on n'a jamais vu le départ vers Israël d'un nombre si élevé de membres d'une communauté juive vivant dans le monde libre - la France est un cas unique dans le monde libre.  L'Agence juive, a-t-il observé, n'est pas responsable du fait que tant de Juifs, et notamment de jeunes juifs, quittent la France, mais le fait qu'Israël est devenu leur principale destination témoigne du succès de l'Agence à créer un lien entre eux et l'Etat juif.

France and Ukraine push global aliyah to new highs, By Aryeh Savir, Tazpit News Agency et Jewish Chronicle

Global aliyah is up 55 per cent, due largely to dramatic increases in immigration from France and Ukraine, Jewish Agency chairman Natan Sharansky announced yesterday.

The Jewish Agency estimates French aliyah will surpass 5,000 by the end of 2014, an all-time record and a full 1 per cent of the 500,000-strong French Jewish community. It will be the largest proportion of a Western Jewish community to make aliyah in a single year.

Mr Sharansky said: "Never in the history of the state of Israel has there been a Jewish community in the free world that has sent such a large proportion of its Jews to Israel. We cannot take responsibility for the fact that so many Jews and so many French young people in general are leaving France, but the fact that Israel has become the number one destination for young French Jews is a testament to our success in connecting them to the Jewish state."

Mr Sharansky noted that the Jewish Agency's Israel experience programmes, including Masa Israel Journey and Bac Bleu Blanc, for teens, have attracted record numbers of young French Jews over the past two years, adding that it is The Jewish Agency's responsibility not only to facilitate French Jewish aliyah but also to strengthen Jewish life in France.