Jews Are Abandoning France

Jews are fleeing France.

Rocked by anti-Semitic violence, most recently when Islamists took hostages at a kosher grocery in Paris Friday, the half-million Jews of France are leaving in droves, according to a British journalist.

A man in Paris' Jewish quarter. (Image via Elvin/flickr)

"Every single French Jew I know has either left or is actively working out how to leave," said Stephen Pollard, editor of the Jewish Chronicle, on Friday, the Daily Mail reported.

The recent violence, which shut down an historic Jewish neighborhood, is not the only threat French Jews have faced recently.

Paris Grand Synagogue closed this sabbath for the first time since World War II. #ShabbatShalom pic.twitter.com/T1wD2lj8qf

— Orthodox Union (@OrthodoxUnion) January 9, 2015

In June of last year, the community was assaulted with beatings, stabbings and ax attacks, not to mention the shooting at the Jewish Museum in nearby Belgium.

France's estimated 2013 Jewish population was 500,000, the largest in the European Union — but the Jewish Chronicle pegs that figure now at 400,000 and falling amid an exodus to Israel, the U.S. and other nations.

"It is the largest emigration of Jews anywhere since the war," Pollard said. "That's a simple fact."

(H/T: Drudge Report)

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