Anti-Semitism in Europe is driving some Jews to seek safety in Israel despite the ongoing war in Gaza

Ashdod, Southern Israel — A crucial runoff election will take place in France on Sunday after the far-right Rassemblement National (Rassemblement National, Rassemblement Nationale) led by Marine Le Pen won a clear victory against centrist President Emmanuel Macron in the first round of the French parliamentary election exactly one week earlier.

Le Pen’s party has a decades-long history of racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Some prominent Jewish figures in France – the country is considered to have the largest Jewish population in Europe – say there has been more anti-Semitism recently, not just from the right but also from the left.

Tension has assembled throughout Europe since the beginning Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, and in major cities across the continent, huge rallies took place, most of them pro-Palestinian.

Gruesome images from Gaza have fuelled outrage and, in some alarming cases, anti-Semitism has been seen and heard. In one of the most disturbing examples, some people even celebrated on the streets of London on the day Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in their unprecedented terror attack on Israel.

Almost 40 percent of anti-Semitic incidents last year occurred in Europe. After the Hamas attack on October 7, there was even a sharp increase. In Germany, incidents almost doubled. In Great Britain, they more than doubled. And in France, they almost quadrupled.

These incidents and the hatred underlying them have led some Jewish families to move not away from the war but toward it – to Israel.

Requests from French Jews to resettle in Israel have increased by 430 percent since October.

Among those who have already taken this step are Sarah Zohar and her family, who lived a comfortable life in France – until her children were attacked on their way to sports training.

They packed their things and moved to the southern Israeli city of Ashdod, which, remarkably, is only about 24 kilometers from the Gaza Strip, which Hamas controlled for almost 20 years and from which it launched its attack in October.

“I feel safer here,” Zohar told CBS News, but she doesn’t pretend the transition has been easy for her family.

“I have a child, 12 years old, and he told me: ‘I don’t want to go to Israel because I don’t want people to come to my house and kill me with a knife and rip my head off,'” she said. “I told him: ‘You don’t have to be afraid. We have an army to defend us.'”

About 3,000 kilometers away, in Paris, Rabbi Tom Cohen said Jews remembered the anti-Semitism of World War II, and some felt that “we have not overcome it and it is still there – it has just changed form, just as many viruses change and mutate.”

CBS News met Guila and Eitan Elbazis as they moved into their new home in Ashdod after leaving their lives in London behind.

They showed their new air raid shelter.

“Hopefully, please, God, it won’t be missiles, but as you can see, this door is bulletproof and lockable,” said Giulia.

When the Elbazis wanted to start a family, they decided they would rather fight the threat of Hamas and Hezbollah on their doorstep than the hatred on the streets of London.

“I think there is a general feeling of fear and worry and unease in London,” Eitan said.

“As if I had to hide who I am for security reasons,” Giulia agreed.

They said they felt safer in Israel, “without a doubt. Without even thinking about it.”

“We have institutions here that defend us,” Eitan said.

Giulia added that although Israel is a country at war, it is “their home” and that for them it is a home where they do not have to hide who they are.