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The bodies of four Jewish victims of a Paris terror attack on a kosher supermarket arrived in Israel on Tuesday ahead of a funeral to be attended by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other public figures. (Jan. 13) AP
A combination of undated photos released by families show, clockwise from top left, Yohan Cohen, 22, Philippe Braham, 45, François-Michel Saada, 64, and Yoav Hattab, 21, who died Jan. 9 at a kosher supermarket in eastern Paris.(Photo: Family photos via AFP/Getty Images)
JERUSALEM — Israeli officials beckoned French Jews to their "historic home" Tuesday, as thousands of mourners gathered to bury four Jewish victims of last week's terror attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris.
French immigrants from all over the country joined top government officials, chief rabbis and other Israelis for the bilingual funeral service and burial in Jerusalem's main Jewish cemetery.
Yohan Cohen, Yoav Hattab, François-Michel Saada and Phillipe Braham were killed by a gunman who stormed the Hyper Casher supermarket in eastern Paris and took a number of hostages on Friday. The gunman, linked to terror attacks in France that killed a total of 17 people, was shot dead by police and the hostages were freed.
Speaking at the funeral, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu urged French Jews to consider immigrating to Israel.
"Jews have a right to live in many countries and have full security, but I believe that they know in their heart, there is one country which is their historic home, a state which will always accept them with open arms," he said.
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The victims were flown to Israel at the request of their families. The expenses were covered by a French Jewish organization.
French and Israeli flags were hung on the final stretch of the mountainous road leading to the city's entrance, a honor usually reserved for visiting French dignitaries.
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Referring to verbal and physical attacks against European Jews and Jewish property during the past few years, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin told the mourners: "We cannot allow it to be the case, that in the year 2015, 70 years since the end of the Second World War, Jews are afraid to walk in the streets of Europe with skullcaps and tzitzit," the ritual fringes religious Jewish men wear under their shirts.
"Yoav, Yohan, Philippe, François-Michel... this is not how we wanted you to arrive in the Land of Israel, this is not how we wanted to see you come home," he said, his voice shaking. "I stand before you, brokenhearted, shaken and in pain, and with me stands an entire nation."
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The attack, which prompted officials at Paris' largest synagogue to cancel Shabbat services for the first time since World War II, shook a community already reeling from a wave of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions.
In 2012 a French Algerian terrorist killed four Jews, including three children, during an attack on a Jewish school in Toulouse, southern France. Last year, an Israeli couple was among the four people killed during an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, Belgium.
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Israeli immigration officials told USA TODAY that Friday's attack added urgency to the government's efforts to encourage French and other European Jews to immigrate to Israel. "Jews in France live with a very profound sense of insecurity," said Avi Mayer, spokesman for the Jewish Agency for Israel, which helps facilitate immigration. "In recent days this has started to translate into a palpable sense of fear."
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Nearly 7,000 French Jews immigrated to Israel in 2014, more than double the 3,400 who did so in 2013. About 1,900 moved to the country in 2012, Mayer said.
Elad Sonn, spokesman for the Ministry of Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption, said his ministry and the Jewish Agency are working together to ensure that French Jews who want to immigrate can cut through the country's notorious bureaucracy.
Mayer said the number of calls to the French-language call center has been in the hundreds since Friday's attack, and that the Jewish Agency's prediction that 10,000 French Jews could immigrate in 2015 "could be conservative."
The majority of French Jews are of north African origin. Mayer said half of north African Jews immigrated to France decades ago and the other half moved to Israel.
Standing among the the many mourners at the funeral, Misha Nadaf, who immigrated to Israel from France a decade ago, said the supermarket attack took place close to his former home in Paris.
"I don't believe the Jewish community has a future in France because I don't think the security situation can improve," he said. "There are too many people who hate Jews."
In the wake of the attack, the French government has deployed thousands of police to guard Jewish synagogues and other sites across France, which has Western Europe's largest Jewish community.
In an address to the nation last Friday, French President François Hollande said the deadly attack on the market was unquestionably "an anti-Semitic attack."
The Times of Israel reported that Cohen, 22, worked at the market, while Hattab, 21, was a student of Tunisian origin and the son of the chief rabbi of Tunis. Father-of-four Braham, 45, was an executive at an IT company and the brother of a rabbi, and Saada, 64, was a retired father of two, the paper said.
Cohen died trying to protect shoppers and saved the life of a 3-year-old as he tackled the gunman, London's The Telegraph reported.
Contributing: Jane Onyanga-Omara, USA TODAY, in London; Associated Press
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