Reflecting on two years of study of the French Jewish community, Yossi Shain and Sarah Fainberg note the increasing role that Israel plays in French Jews’ sense of themselves:
French aliyah to Israel has quadrupled since [Ilan] Halimi was murdered [in 2006], and between 9,000 and 10,000 French olim are expected in 2015, making France the leading country of emigration to Israel, one which will lose a full 2 percent of its Jewish population (the world’s largest after Israel and the United States) this year alone. Moreover, many well-to-do French Jews who have not made a final exit are part of the “Boeing aliyah,” owning a residence in Tel Aviv or Netanya while continuing to work in Paris or Nice. The “push factor” is driven of course by fear of Islamic extremism but also by the ongoing pessimism of young French citizens about the declining grandeur de la France. . . .
Of course, anti-Semitism [itself] has long been “Israelized,” and not just in France; the justification of anti-Jewish hatred and violence by reference to Israel’s policies is, by now, an old story. But the implications of the increasing importance of Israeli culture for Diaspora Jews have yet to be fully understood, and nowhere is this more true than in France. French Jews follow Israeli media, watch Israeli films, read Israeli literature, conform to Israeli religious patterns, and eat Israeli cuisine. Indeed, according to the sociologist Erik Cohen, when given the hypothetical choice, many French Jews would prefer to “be reborn as Jews in Israel.”
Read more on Jewish Review of Books: http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles/1771/the-israelization-of-judaism-and-the-jews-of-france/