Quotes of the Day

When the Free French Army's 2nd Armored Division helped liberate Paris 60 years ago last week, a 24-year-old Algerian Jew named Robert Elbeze marched in its ranks. He went on to marry a woman from an Alsatian Jewish family, settle in Paris' historically Jewish Marais neighborhood and raise a family as a proud citizen of the French republic.

His son Alain is still here, but his faith in the republic is gone. Disturbed by the increasing pace of attacks against Jews and their property in France, Alain Elbeze, 52, has resolved to move with his wife and five children to Israel. "Look at this," he says, gesturing at the barriers erected in front of his synagogue on the Boulevard de Belleville in Paris' east end. "I didn't have to grow up with this, and I don't want my kids to have to."

He's not alone. The Jewish population of France — at 600,000, the world's largest outside Israel and the U.S. — is in an uproar. "At my synagogue, it doesn't matter whether you talk to a doctor or a worker — all of them want to leave," says Elbeze. And more and more are doing so. French immigration to Israel climbed to 2,083 last year from 1,366 in 1999, according to the Jewish Agency, the Israeli body that handles immigration; it could total 3,000 by the end of this year. The Israeli government is receptive: in July, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon set off a diplomatic flap when he called on French Jews to "move to Israel as early as possible," and later welcomed 200 new French immigrants at Ben-Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv to "the only place where you can be safe."

Most who make the move blame rising anti-Semitism. Jews have historically struggled in France, from the 13th century Trial of the Talmud to persecution during the Nazi occupation; but they have also flourished, providing two French Prime Ministers in the 20th century (Léon Blum and Pierre Mendès-France). Today many feel under siege both from the country's 6 million-strong Muslim population and from far-right political movements like the National Front. The French Justice Ministry announced last week that it registered 298 "anti-Semitic acts" so far this year, compared to 108 for all of 2003. The desecration of three Jewish cemeteries in recent months was followed last week by an arson attack that destroyed a former synagogue serving as a soup kitchen and social center in eastern Paris. President Jacques Chirac and Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë expressed outrage over the incidents, but outrage isn't enough for Jewish leaders or their communities. When the few cases of violence or vandalism that are prosecuted reach the courts, they claim, the courts don't take their concerns seriously. They are rankled, for instance, over an August administrative appeals court ruling to reinstate two 11-year-old boys who had hit and insulted a Jewish classmate at Paris' élite Lycée Montaigne. "Now it's the victim who has to change schools," as Rabbi Claude Zaffran puts it.

Zaffran fears that anti-Semitic attacks will become banal events in France, and other Jewish leaders share his concern. "No one has been killed or seriously hurt, but there's a growing sense of depression," says Emmanuel Weintraub, a member of the executive bureau of crif, the representative council of Jewish organizations in France. "It used to be hard to talk about a single Jewish community in France, but now there is a community of concern, and lots of discussion about emigration."

Alain Elbeze isn't a man to run scared. He says he went to prison at the age of 20 for mixing it up with neo-Nazis, and he keeps a poing americain (brass knuckles) handy when he's on the move. But he sees no point in keeping up the struggle. Though Elbeze, an ad salesman, attended public school, he pays j1,200 a month to send his children to private Jewish schools — not just for faith, but for safety. His kids will have plenty of company: in the last 10 years, the number of students in Jewish schools in greater Paris has doubled to 30,000, with thousands more on waiting lists.

Those who can afford it are simply moving out, buying apartments in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, Netanya or Ashdod. El Al flights to and from Europe now regularly feature in-flight ads, in French, for property in Israel. And according to Israeli press reports, tourist trips by French Jews — some clearly exploring immigration — have skyrocketed in recent years.

The exodus reflects a genuine crisis in the French psyche. The national dream — in which membership in the secular republic is always more important than ethnic and religious identity — is waking up to an increasingly atomized reality. "A man like Chirac still lives in a republican world," says novelist Michaël Sebban. "When he's confronted by anti-Semitism all he can do is affirm the republican values of equality and fraternity. But it's like pressing a button that doesn't work anymore." Especially in the socially underprivileged banlieues, where Jewish-Muslim tension is highest, the appeal to shared citizenship is more apt to reap mockery than reverence. "Being a citizen of France used to give everyone a kind of bulletproof vest, but now it's fallen off and we see each other as Jews, Arabs, whatever," Sebban says.

Sebban tried Israel in the 1990s; he lasted four years. "It was a big disappointment," he says. He feels that many French Jews who see Israel as the promised land will be equally disappointed. "People's hope in France is failing, but they don't really know Israel; it's just a dream for them." When members of his congregation ask for his advice, Rabbi Zaffran reminds them that it's not easy in Israel. "The salaries are lower, and especially with lots of kids, it's not easy to make ends meet," he tells them. He's staying with his congregation for now, but when he retires in a few years, it's likely he will go, too; all four of his children have settled in Israel. And by then, Elbeze expects to have his little piece of the Holy Land as well.

• JAMES GRAFF | Paris
• As anti-Semitic attacks rise, French Jews seek haven in Israel