(JTA) — A Jewish couple were among more than a dozen people killed in an explosion in Marrakesh that Moroccan authorities are treating as a terrorist attack.
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 April 28. The spot is popular with tourists; 10 of the casualties were foreigners.
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 Monday.
The Weizmans were actively involved in Shanghai’s expatriate 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 3-year-old son David Yosef, and Massoud was a regular at the center’s Torah study classes.
“We lost very precious people," Greenberg told reporters. ‘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.”
David Yosef was with his grandparents when his parents were killed.
Witnesses told Reuters that 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. Body parts were found scattered throughout the wreckage.
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