April 30, 2011
Jewish couple among the dead in Marrakesh cafe explosion
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A Jewish couple were among more than a dozen people killed in an explosion Thursday in Marrakesh, Morocco.
Massoud Weizman, 32, and his wife Michal, 30, lived in Shanghai, China, but were visiting Massoud’s parents in Casablanca for Passover. They apparently dropped by the cafe overlooking Marrakesh’s Jamaa el-Fnaa square just before the bomb exploded. The spot is popular with tourists; 10 of those killed were foreigners. Authorities are treating the incident as a terrorist attack.
Michal, who is an Israeli citizen, was pregnant.
Morrocco’s King Mohammed VI has ordered an investigation into the bombing. The country’s last major terrorist attack was in 2003. The king reportedly has arranged for a charter flight to fly family members from Morocco to Israel, where the young couple will be laid to rest on Monday.
The Weizmans were actively involved in Shanghai’s ex-pat Jewish community, Rabbi Sholom Greenberg, head of Chabad of Shanghai, told lubavitch.com. Michal was on the parents’ committee at the Jewish preschool attended by the couple’s three-year-old son David Yosef, and Massoud was a regular at the center’s Torah study classes.
“We lost very precious people. The entire community is in shock. Messod and Michal were very special and beautiful people with the kindest of hearts and purest of souls. They were a sincere young couple with an open home,” Greenberg told reporters.
David Yosef was with his grandparents when his parents were killed.
Witnesses told Reuters they saw a man carrying a bag entering the cafe right before the explosion. Other witnesses told reporters the man was a suicide bomber. The explosion ripped through the first and second floors of the building, and body parts were found scattered throughout the wreckage.
