For Jews From France, a Sociable Landing Spot in Israel
|
Version 0 of 1. NETANYA, Israel — At one end of Independence Square, by the dancing fountain, French speakers sat at tables outside La Brioche, a patisserie owned by native Israelis, drinking coffee one warm afternoon this week and ordering from a window display of éclairs, colorful macaroons and mille-feuilles. At the other end of the square, French and Hebrew speakers lunched at Chez Claude, a falafel and shawarma joint owned by French immigrants, where a stack of baguette rolls sat on the counter as an alternative to pita bread. By dusk this small patch of Netanya took on even more of a continental flavor as the outdoor cafes glowed with fairy lights and table candles. A plethora of real estate agencies advertised themselves with the French word “immobilier” and hair salons offered “coiffure.” This Israeli city on the Mediterranean coast has long been a magnet for French-Jewish immigrants; its municipal website has branded it “the Israeli Riviera.” After this month’s wave of terrorist attacks in Paris, including one that claimed the lives of four Jews at a kosher supermarket, and with France’s Jews increasingly feeling threatened by anti-Semitism, Netanya is gearing up for a much larger influx. “We are waiting for them,” said Debbi Dahan-Ben David, the owner of Chez Claude, who came from Paris with her husband and children 22 years ago. “This is our country,” she said, expressing a sentiment widely held by veteran immigrants and newcomers. “We have no other place.” When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu invited all French Jewry to come to Israel, a nation of immigrants, declaring they would be welcomed with “open arms,” he stirred a reprisal from critics who said he was exploiting the situation and would do better to call for tighter security for the roughly 500,000 Jews in France. But with growing manifestations of anti-Semitism and an economic downswing in France, the number of French Jews making aliyah — the Hebrew term for immigration — had already spiked over the last year. Out of a total of nearly 80,000 French immigrants since the early 1970s, nearly 7,000 came in 2014 alone. For the first time, French Jews constituted the largest portion of immigrants that year from any country in the world, according to Israel’s Ministry of Immigration and Absorption. While Jerusalem and the southern coastal city of Ashdod are also popular with French newcomers, the largest number last year, 2,000, made their home in Netanya, a city of about 200,000. Victor Atiya, 51, the owner of La Brioche and a native of Netanya, said he transformed his ordinary cafe, formerly called the Peacock Bar, into a French patisserie two years ago to cater to the growing French crowd, bringing pastry chefs from France. The French immigrants were “quality people,” he said, who only improved the surroundings. Not quite Nice or Cannes, much of central Netanya beyond the seafront promenade and the renovated square looks more shabby than chic. A city of different populations, it is also popular with Russian immigrants and as a holiday destination for English tourists. But it offers French-speaking synagogues and dentists and provides immigrants with an immediate sense of community in a country where their language is not widely spoken or understood. The more French there are in Netanya, it appears, the more they come. Myriam Haziza, 41, came from Lyon with her family three years ago and opened O’Palais Gourmand, a pizzeria and creperie, in the square. When a customer asked for a slice of pizza with a topping of sweet corn, an Israeli favorite, she said there was none, exclaiming in mock horror and in near-fluent Hebrew, “The French do not eat pizza with corn!” Like many, Ms. Haziza said she had come out of Zionist love for Israel but also out of growing discomfort in France, where, she said, “It is impossible for the children to go out alone.” Language had been the main obstacle to adjusting to life here, she said. “Learn, learn, learn Hebrew — that’s the most important thing. Without it, any small matter that needs taking care of becomes big.” She said the family had to work longer hours in Israel than in France to make ends meet. School finishes earlier, usually around 1 p.m., adding to the difficulty for those with young children. Longtime immigrants say some newcomers had regrets and returned to France over the years, finding the Israelis too brusque. Nevertheless, Ms. Haziza said, many of her friends in France now want to make aliyah as soon as possible. “It is war there,” she said. “Soldiers are guarding the schools.” Netanya has witnessed its own deadly terrorist attacks and is well within the range of rockets of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In 2002, 29 civilians were killed and more than 100 were wounded when a Palestinian suicide bomber struck during a Passover Seder at the Park Hotel, a block from Independence Square. One of the Israeli soldiers killed during the war with Hamas in Gaza last summer, Staff Sgt. Jordan Bensemhoun, 22, had immigrated from Lyon at the age of 16. Yet French immigrants do not calculate the risks of moving to Israel in cold casualty figures, drawing instead on what many of them see as a return to their sacred homeland. Here, they say, Jews can wear a skullcap without fear and there is an army to protect them. “Even if there is a war I prefer to be here, in my country,” said Natan Touitou, 21, who moved here from Paris 18 months ago and works at the Pate a Choux patisserie, or bakery, near the market. Mr. Touitou said he was a close friend of Yohan Cohen, 22, a victim of the kosher supermarket attack in Paris who was buried this week in Jerusalem. Mr. Touitou was on his way to attend evening prayer with Mr. Cohen’s family, who were sitting shiva, the traditional mourning period, in a Netanya hotel by the square. Dov Maimon, a French-born Israeli who heads the Europe Desk at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a research group based in Jerusalem, said, “Jewish migration is not a new story — Jews have always moved from place to place.” Along with what he called “push factors” in France, Israel now offered “pull factors,” he said, including employment, education, good health services and a community. In addition, he said, the fact that the majority of French Jews were of North African descent only increased their sense of belonging in Israel, where about half the Jews are Sephardim of similar North African or Middle Eastern background, and where many French Jews already have some extended family. Rachel Frehel, a real estate agent at ADK Invest in Netanya, said many French Jews were buying apartments in the city as an insurance policy or an investment. “The market is going up and fast,” she said, noting that she recently sold an apartment in a building for about $50,000 more than an identical one in the same building six months ago. She also said there was a phenomenon known as aliyah Boeing, where the family breadwinner might maintain a business in France and commute every two weeks or monthly from the business to the family in Israel. Ms. Frehel immigrated from Paris with her young son eight years ago and has since married a Frenchman she met in Netanya. She said the trend was to send children to local kindergartens and schools and to try to integrate, rather than living as a French person in Israel. “And when the kids grow up and are drafted into the army,” she said, “it makes the parents feel very Israeli.” |