Jewish people are leaving France because they no longer feel safe

David Suissa did this morning what he does every Friday morning. Buy bread to break with his family at the start of the Jewish Sabbath.

Now he does it in a supermarket in Southern Israel. Up until last summer, he did it in the supermarket in Paris where four Jews were murdered last week.

The Suissa family were among 7,000 French Jews who moved to Israel last year. More came from France than from any other country.

His wife Sandrine tells me that she will always ‘feel’ French, and that her heart will always be in France. But the move to Israel is for her a matter of protecting her children.

In France she had begun to encourage her son and daughters not to display their Jewishness in public.

She wants her son to be able to wear his Yamulke and not feel scared.

David and Sandrine have brought their family to live in Ashdod – a town which has often come under rocket attack from neighbouring Gaza.

Despite that, they both say they feel safer here than they did in France. Here in Israel, David says, they have a plan for dealing with Islamic extremism – in France they don’t.