'It pushes us more': French Jews tell 'Post' of how antisemitism forced them to make aliyah

Since the biblical patriarch Abraham set out from the land of his birth and his father’s home for the land of Canaan, the Jewish people have aspired to immigrate to Israel. The desire for such an aspirational journey is written into the ethnonym “Hebrew” – the people who “cross over.” The journey to the Levant is seen by many as an ascent to the Holy Land, an “aliyah.”

Last Thursday, 154 French Jews made aliyah on an International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) flight. The Jerusalem Post spoke to four families before their journey – the Sitbons, the Cohens, the Elbazes and a family from Alfortville – and explored their motivations for making aliyah. What they shared was that the Abrahamic desire for the ascending journey remains strong in his descendants in France, a desire that burns stronger as antisemitism rises, politics disenfranchises them, and the bright future of their beloved Republic dims.

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All those who made aliyah on Thursday and spoke to the Post had been considering aliyah for a long time as a fantasy or distant future aspiration. It was not antisemitism, politics, or October 7 alone that inspired them to make aliyah – these were only final catalysts to make the journey now.

The Sitbon family, who made aliyah with 17 family members from four generations, had been considering immigrating for 15 years. For the children, it was a dream they had grown up with.

Many French Jews hold dear the dream of crossing over into Israel because they are fiercely Zionistic. Those who spoke to the Post in France last week and in April have unanimously expressed a connection with the State of Israel, a sense of brotherhood with Israelis, and support for the IDF’s fight to protect the Jewish state. Aliyah is seen as a positive Zionist principle, and those who make aliyah are praised.

Yet, at the same time, French Jews have contradictory feelings: an intense, patriotic love for France – they love the language, the culture, the cuisine, the history. Many of them see French Jewry as inextricable from the fabric of French society, and do not wish to see a France without Jews.

THE DISSONANCE between adoration of both aliyah and the Republic has come into greater contrast as the future of France has come into question, and the rising tide of antisemitism, which has swelled into a tsunami with the world-shaking events of October 7, has pushed some Jews to ascend to the perceived safer ground in Israel. 

Changing demographics has led to a shift in the culture that French Jews so enjoy, and many have become exasperated with the centrist political wing’s inaction on this and other national issues. Many French Jews expressed frustration with the political climate in the country, torn between a Right whose history they don’t trust and a Left that has aligned itself with radical leftist and Islamist factions.

Jewish leaders warn its time to pack bags

After the first round of French parliamentary elections on June 28, controversy arose when a prominent French rabbi told the Post that there was no future for Jews in France, and that he encouraged all youth to make aliyah. However, the treasurer of his synagogue insisted last week in a conversation with the Post that French Jews should stay in France, because they were first and foremost French. 

That same official has grandchildren who were making aliyah. He denied that antisemitism was as endemic as many people have reported and claimed. Even so, outside the synagogue were at least four gendarmerie, and those entering the house of worship had to pass a security check with a series of locking doors.

While the families that made aliyah on Thursday had long dreamed of doing so, antisemitism rising in the country over the years had slowly pushed them to make it a reality. Not all of them had directly experienced antisemitism, but the possibility occupied their mind.

The Alfortville family, consisting of a mother, her young daughter, a grandmother, and one small dog, said that there was no antisemitism in their neighborhood, but had heard about incidents in the country all the time. 

The Sitbon family’s synagogue had never been attacked, but had been surrounded with metal sheets to shield it from potential attacks. Simon Sitbon said that they had to be conscious of incidents at other synagogues. It was only in May that the Rouen Synagogue had been damaged in an arson terrorist attack – the prayer hall remained blackened with soot when the Post visited last Monday.

The Cohen family’s encounters with antisemitism weighed heavily on them before they made aliyah on the IFCJ flight. One of their six children had been on the swings at the park with her friends when one of them mentioned “Israel” while playing. A group of Arab youth demanded the swings from them, pelting them with bottles and other objects. At a gym locker room shared by a Jewish and non-Jewish school, she was told that it was “not a place for Jews.”

Antisemitism intensified with October 7, when a Hamas-led pogrom slew 1,200 people in Israel and kidnapped 250 others, and anti-Israel protests and riots erupted around the globe. The mother of the Alfortville family said that after weighing aliyah for a long time, October 7 was the final straw. The Cohen family said that there had always been antisemitism in France, but since that tragic Saturday, students in school and university have felt unwelcome.

At Jewish schools, security had increased. 

Stephanie Sitbon, 58, also noted that security had to be increased at kindergartens. The multi-generational immigrant family was waiting for each member to be ready to make aliyah, said the wife of Simon Sitbon, and they felt that October 7 was the moment. Life pre-October 7 wasn’t optimal for Jews, and after the attack it had been cemented for the Sitbon family that the same society was a completely different reality for Jews and non-Jews.

“We see what all the other people think about us all over the world, and it pushes us more” to go to Israel, said Simon.

Sarah Cohen, 41, said that October 7 raised fear of the conditions in France. They have heard many stories, and she noted that there were many, like their own, that did not have their moment in the spotlight of public attention. After the Israel-Hamas War started, one neighbor approached the Cohen’s home in the middle of the night, and shouted threats that he would burn down their home. Their other neighbors had ostracized them; friends and acquaintances suddenly started ignoring them.

“They don’t want to have anything to do with Jews,” she said.

THE FAMILIES mentioned the troubling political atmosphere as contributing to the sense that France was losing stability and becoming inhospitable to Jews. The IFCJ aliyah occurred during a period of political limbo as negotiations continued to form a coalition. 

Many Jews had reluctantly shifted to supporting the right-wing National Rally, whose founder Jean-Marie Le Pen and other past prominent members had dealt in antisemitism, amid fears of the far-Left and concerns that President Emmanuel Macron’s centrists refused to address the mass migration and lack of integration. Many Jews feared the acceptance by the left-wing New Popular Front (NPF) of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise into its coalition. According to the immigrant families, Mélenchon had been antagonistic to Israel and Jews. 

Mainstream Jewish organizations like the Representative Council of Jewish Institutions of France (CRIF) called for French voters not to vote for the far Right or far Left. After some political maneuvering by Macron, victory was snatched away from National Rally to the benefit of NPF.

The Alfortville mother preferred the Right over the Left. Perhaps the issue of government might calm over time, but she didn’t want to wait for politics. “Merde” (crap), the grandmother said summing up the political situation.

Between the antisemitism, the politics, and “everything,” Cohen said that her family wanted to go before even more happens.

“We are losing out country,” she said.

MELANIE ELBAZ, who made aliyah with her husband and three children, explained against the backdrop of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris that France was seeing an influx of Muslim migrants who were changing the culture of the country.

“It is an amazing country but it is headed in a completely different direction,” she said.

Her husband, David, said that “there was no future for the children” in France.

The Sitbon family said that they now felt like strangers in the country. The families believed that in Israel, they would have the freedom to live as Jews, and their children would live in a dynamic country in which they had room to grow unhindered.

As a daughter, mother, grandmother and sister, Stephanie hoped that her family will be able to live more in Israel. David Elbaz said that he wanted to feel at home, to be able to truly live as a religious Jew. There was a magic in Israel, one that he wanted his children to experience growing up. The Alfortville family said that things could only improve in Israel, where she had seen how everyone knows everyone, and everyone talks to everyone else in a manner that doesn’t occur in a very atomized society.

“Here [in France], we feel alone,” she said. “It’s like a big family in Israel.”

As the war unfolded in the Levant, she had watched how everyone unified around the blue and white flag.“Here we are few, but there we are one.”

The Alfortville mother, like the other families, was undaunted by the war and the security failures of October 7. Even as their El Al flight traveled under a cascade of airlines suspending flights to Israel and airspace occupied by the specter of an Iranian attack, they saw Israel as a refuge. The Jewish state was devoted to protecting them in a way that France could not match.

Elbaz said that it would be scarier to stay than to go, and that there would be more personal security for his children. Lea Bellaiche, Simon Sitbon’s daughter, said that despite the war, Israel felt safer than France for her two young daughters.

The families acknowledged that leaving behind the beloved land of their birth and starting their lives anew in a distant land was no small task. Elbaz has a brother and nephew in Israel, and could see that life wasn’t easy in Israel.

MANY OF the 154 people on the plane to Israel on Thursday had difficulty speaking Hebrew. The Cohens were learning, and the older children could already speak it fluently.

Stephanie Sitbon would continue to work remotely. Simon, who worked as a kosher certifier in France, said that he would need to find work when the family moved to Netanya, but he believed that God would provide. One son was already in Israel, and working to establish himself. The Alfortville mother, from her small apartment, hoped that more economic opportunities would be available for the family than in France.

Bellaiche was nervous about the new experience but she had faith in God that it would all work out. The optimism spread on the short flight last Thursday, as the families were joined by a dozen others who sang and cheered as, one by one, they filled out their last items of citizenship paperwork. As they stepped off the plane, they were greeted by Israeli leaders, music, and dancing.

When the music stopped, reality and life began again, and the families traveled to their new homes for the challenge of every new moment in a new land. For some, it was a challenge that they relished, and what they left behind was a life of quiet desperation.

Simon Sitbon said that there were a lot of people that wanted to make aliyah, but simply didn’t have the ability.

Abraham had made the journey to Israel from Haran after a divine prompt. His father Terah had also attempted to cross the Euphrates and immigrate to Canaan, but from Ur Kasdim he had only made it as far as Haran.

International Fellowship of Christians and Jews board chairman Bishop Paul Lanier had visited the families to better understand their needs and why they were making aliyah. He was deeply troubled by the stories of antisemitism he heard. While IFCJ was an aid organization that provided food, shelter, electricity, money, and medical support to poor Jews and elderly Holocaust survivors around the world, Lanier said that as the needs of disadvantaged Jews evolved because of the scourge of increasing antisemitism, “aliyah is going to become an increasing part of what we do.”

The August French aliyah flight will not be the last that the fellowship organizes. There will be more French Jews who feel that they can no longer ignore the age-old impetus to ascend to the land of their forefathers. As antisemitism, political trouble, and societal problems develop in the Republic, it remains to be seen if these journeys will continue with individual families, or if there will be a full exodus from France to the Promised Land.

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