(Israel Hayom via JNS) As Jews in Europe have become afraid to wear kippot in public and U.S. synagogues are becoming targets of terror, the sense of insecurity that many Diaspora Jews are feeling is prompting them to invest in homes in Israel, whether as part of a plan to make aliyah or just out of a desire for safe haven. The phenomenon is particularly prominent among French Jews, many of whom have made aliyah in the past few years.

According to David Refael, a real estate agent who founded the Refael Group, this means demand for Israeli real estate will remain high. Refael noted that the same process takes place with every wave of aliyah. The Russian aliyah of the 1990s, he said, caused home prices to triple.

Moti Iloze of Re/max Netanya said that “this year, we are feeling an uptick in purchases of homes by Jews from abroad at a significant rate, which is having an obvious effect on the market. Diaspora Jews tend to prefer the more high-end areas of the Israeli real estate landscape, along the coastline, and therefore those markets are the ones mainly affected by what Diaspora Jewry are experiencing in their home countries.

Currently, there are some 14.5 million Jews worldwide, approximately 6.5 million of whom live in Israel.