Dramatic Rise in Immigration of French Jews

The past two years have seen a dramatic rise in Jewish immigration from France, but this is not the first time there have been such spikes, according to “The Jerusalem Post.”

The first exodus came in 1949, a year after Israel gained independence, when close to 1,700 French Jews set sail for the new Jewish state. For a long stretch thereafter, the immigration figures hovered at around several hundred a year. Then came the 1967 Six- Day War, and for a period that extended almost until the 1973 Yom Kippur War, several thousand French immigrants arrived in Israel every year. In fact, up until last year, the record number of French immigrants in one year was set in 1969 when 5,292 arrived.