Jewish community mourns ‘child of Tunisia’

Yoav Hattab, 21, was one of four victims of the deadly terrorist attack at a kosher supermarket in Paris on January 9, 2015. (Photo credit: Courtesy)

The loss of a “child of Tunisia” has plunged its small Jewish community into mourning after Yoav Hattab, son of a Tunis rabbi, was killed in last week’s jihadist attack on a Paris kosher supermarket.

Hattab, a 21-year-old who was in France for international business studies, had a bright future in front of him.

“Tunisia paid a heavy price” in the attacks which killed 17 people over three days in the French capital, said Jacob Lellouche, who runs a restaurant in the Tunis suburb of La Goulette and is president of a Jewish cultural organisation.

Apart from Yoav, who held Tunisian citizenship, other victims had their roots in the predominantly Muslim country, such as renowned Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Georges Wolinski, psychiatrist Elsa Cayat, who wrote a column in the French satirical weekly, and Francois-Michel Saada, gunned down like Hattab in the supermarket.

— AFP