PARIS (AFP) –
Around 2,000 French Jews are to emigrate to Israel this year, slightly more than last year but down from previous peaks, according to figures from the agency helping to arrange the trip.

Around 230 of those planning to leave were to be blessed on Thursday by Gilles Bernheim, France's Chief Rabbi, before taking a flight next week.

The head of the Jewish Agency for Israel's department for "aliyah", the Hebrew term for Jews migrating to the Holy Land, Oren Toledano, said 400 young people and 400 retirees are among this year's "olims".

His organisation has helped prepare them for their new lives by giving beginner's Hebrew classes and helping them find jobs and schools in Israel.

Most who perform "aliyah" remain in Israel, although 10 percent return.

France is home to around half a million Jews, the biggest such community outside Israel and the United States and the only one in Europe to have grown since the Holocaust due to arrivals from North Africa.

It is also now the biggest source of new migrants to Israel, according to Toledano, who told a Jewish news weekly: "French Jews are very Zionist, that's part of their culture, history and religious practice.

"Israel is an essential value for the Jewish community in France."

The high point of French Jewish emigration to Israel came in 1967 when the Six Day War inspired 5,300 to make the journey.

Since then the figure has largely hovered between 1,000 and 1,500 per year, although twice since the Millennium it has passed 2,800 per year amid fears of an increase in anti-Semitic attacks.