JERUSALEM — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel said on Sunday that his government was encouraging a “mass immigration” of Jews from Europe, reopening a contentious debate about Israel’s role at a challenging time for European Jews and a month before Israel’s national elections.
Speaking the morning after a Jewish guard was fatally shot outside a synagogue in Copenhagen in one of two attacks there, the remarks echoed a similar call by the prime minister inviting France’s Jews to move to Israel after last month’s attacks in Paris. Critics said then that the expression of such sentiments so soon after the Paris shootings was insensitive and divisive. Such sentiments also go to the heart of the complexity of Israel’s identity and its relationship with the Jewish communities of the diaspora, whose support has been vital.
“Jews have been murdered again on European soil only because they were Jews,” Mr. Netanyahu said Sunday in Jerusalem. “Of course, Jews deserve protection in every country, but we say to Jews, to our brothers and sisters: Israel is your home,” he added.
But expressing the unease felt by many Jews abroad over such comments, Jair Melchior, Denmark’s chief rabbi, said he was “disappointed” by Mr. Netanyahu’s call.
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Mr. Netanyahu has again weighed in on the subject at a fraught time, when Israel’s relations with the White House are strained over his address to a joint meeting of Congress on Iran’s nuclear program next month, two weeks before Israeli elections on March 17.
In an election video posted Saturday on Mr. Netanyahu’s Facebook page, the prime minister gave a personal account of how important immigration to Israel has been for Europe’s Jews. Talking into the camera, Mr. Netanyahu tells the story of how his grandfather was beaten unconscious by an anti-Semitic mob at a train station “in the heart of Europe” at the end of the 19th century.
“He pledged to himself that if he survived the night he would bring his family to the land of Israel and help build a new future for the Jewish people in its land,” Mr. Netanyahu said, adding, “I am standing here today as the prime minister of Israel because my grandfather kept his promise.”
