Why UK is best place to live in Europe
ALIYAH EXPERTS agree that the improving economy and lowering threat of antisemitism in Britain is leaving it well ahead of its European neighbours as a place for Jews to live.
The latest figures from the Jewish Agency for Israel for 2013 show that while aliyah from the UK dropped by 27 per cent, across Western Europe it grew by 35 per cent.
The most striking rise was aliyah from France, where it rose by 63 per cent. Belgium and the Netherlands both saw rises of around 50 per cent.
Shay Felber, deputy director of community services at the Jewish Agency for Israel, the body that approves aliyah applications, said that the sluggish economy had been a major push factor for UK émigrés in recent years.
Now, “one of the things we are sensing is that people feel much more comfortable living in Britain and not leaving,” he said.
Bobby Brown, former diaspora affairs adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “There are two basic things that seem to impact greatly on aliyah figures — the economy and antisemitism.” He added that with the economy viewed as improving and antisemitism under control, the drive for British Jews to make aliyah is weak.
Mr Brown, who has held senior positions in the Jewish Agency and the World Jewish Congress, said he believed that the same factors influenced the aliyah figure for America, which dropped by 13 per cent.
He added that the UK and US figures reflect a decision by the Jewish Agency to concentrate its efforts on countries where aliyah is seen as urgent, such as France, where the sharp rise in immigration to Israel was largely prompted by concerns about antisemitism. “I think in essence they are concentrating less on the US and the UK and more on communities that are under threat, and that makes sense,” he said.
Mr Felber denied that there has been any rollback of aliyah promotion in the UK, saying that the Jewish Agency had actually “invested more resources in aliyah”. Elad Sonn, a spokesman for Israel’s Ministry of Immigrant Absorption, insisted that efforts in places like France do not come at the expense of operations in the UK. “Nothing comes at the expense of anything,” he said.
Yet some experts on immigration to Israel argue that the Jewish Agency should admit that the drop in aliyah is a result of structural changes that it made.
Two years ago, the Jewish Agency