French olim to jump 118% to 7,500, followed closely by Ukraine with 7,100 new immigrants, 6,300 from Russia and 2,900 from the US.

More than 30,000 Jews are expected to immigrate to Israel in 2015, a 16% increase on last year, Immigrant Absorption Minister Ze'ev Elkin (Likud) said Thursday.

The largest number of new olim came from France, with a 2015 estimate of 7,500 representing a 118% jump on 3,440 in 2013, the immigration ministry said.

In January, after four Jews were murdered in an Islamist terror attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu issued an invitation to French and European Jews to make aliyah and return to the Jewish homeland.

France's Jewish community is estimated at between 500,000 and 600,000 people, the largest in Europe and one of the largest in the world behind Israel and America.

Following behind French olim, Israel is expected to receive this year 7,100 Jews from Ukraine, a whopping 250% increase on 2013, as well as 6,300 from Russia and 2,900 from the United States.

Since Israel was founded in 1948, more than three million Jews have made aliyah.

The country has an estimated population of 8.4 million, the Central Bureau of Statistics reported in September, of which some 75% are Jews.

AFP contributed to this report.