Isaac Herzog, the leader of the opposition Zionist Union Image by getty images

By Naomi Zeveloff February 28, 2017

Israeli opposition leader Isaac Herzog said that Israel should plan for a massive influx of diaspora Jews after security threats against American and French Jews.

“I call on the government to urgently prepare and draw up a national emergency plan for the possibility of waves of immigration of our Jewish brothers to Israel,” Herzog said at a Zionist Union Knesset faction meeting, reported Haaretz.

Herzog also said he had faith in the American government “to harshly and aggressively eradicate this phenomenon.”

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Herzog was responding to recent reports of anti-Semitism in the United States, where dozens of Jewish Community Centers have been evacuated over bomb threats and headstones at two Jewish cemeteries have been destroyed, and in France, where two Jewish men were attacked with hacksaws.

After 2015 attacks against Jews in France and Copenhagen, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on European Jews to immigrate to Israel.

Danish chief rabbi Jair Melchior said he was “disappointed” by Netanyahu’s invitation. “People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of Zionism, but not because of terrorism,” he told the Associated Press.

Contact Naomi Zeveloff at [email protected]

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