Wikimedia elects new board, digital revolution underway

THESE TUNISIAN JEWS WHO MARKED THE HISTORY OF THEIR COUNTRY 4/4 – In the northern suburbs of Tunis, and in particular in La Goulette, where he was born in 1959, Gilles Jacob Lellouche was known as the white wolf. In his family, however, the star was first his older brother, Sydney, volleyball champion and darling of his neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s. Jacob was the youngest. But it is to him, as well as to Lily, his mother, that director Karim Belhaj is preparing to pay tribute in a film that will soon be on screens and whose title, The Jewish Question in Tunisiaechoes has that of an article by Karl Marx, published in 1844.

Judeo-Arab cuisine

To understand this interest, let’s take a look back at the career of the man who was, among other things, the favorite chef of La Goulette. Jacob completed his entire schooling in the capital, at the Carthage Byrsa school, then at the Carnot high school. After a baccalaureate that crowned secondary studies during which he accumulated more “friends” than good grades, Jacob experienced his first culture shock when he moved to Paris. His sisters, for their part, did their Aliyah : they left to settle in Israel.

In France, despite a great love, a marriage and two beautiful children, Jacob cannot dispel his faintness : he is brilliant, full of projects, but achieves few of them. He is hungry for success, and Paris does not roll out the red carpet for him.

With his curling moustache and teasing look, the Tunisian nevertheless has an impressive gift of the gab, capable of seducing the most reluctant interlocutors. It allows him to embellish reality, to deal with setbacks, and to always come out on top. His extravagance and theatrical gestures contribute to his art of storytelling and his way of convincing of the merits of outlandish ideas. Like this find, which consists of selling three drops of orange blossom at a prohibitive price in a test tube under the label “L’air du pays”. A marketing ploy that found a financier… but few customers.

In the late 1990s, Jacob returned to Tunis. Once again, he created a character for himself: that of the big guy in the striped sweater, who was nostalgic for La Goulette. A return home and to the bosom of Lily, the matriarch with the huge eyes, who had seen it all since her birth in Libya.

When her husband, who was a butcher, died, Lily could have expected a quiet retirement, but she continued to work in the kitchen at the restaurant Les Jasmins, which Patrick Sebag. This establishment, which brought La Goulette back into fashion, remained a pillar of Tunisian nightlife for a long time until it was caught up in management problems in 2023. Difficulties made worse by an interview given in 2005 to an Israeli media outlet, in which Patrick Sebag said he was considering “moving to Israel”.

The Tunisian revolution of 2011

Jacob, for his part, quickly understands that the situation lends itself to nostalgia. He knows that Tunisians are fond of Judeo-Arab cuisine. However, this is no longer served in restaurants. The political context is one of openness to the Jewish community and, despite the attack on the Ghriba synagogue, in 2002, the indicators are looking good. So he opens his restaurant, Mamie Lily. The concept is simple: it will be “like home”. A colonial villa flanked by an exuberant garden, in the heart of La Goulette, will be the dream setting for the brand, which quickly attracts all of Tunis.

The friendly address, where mother and son officiate, becomes the favorite place for large tables of friends, and also for all those who want Tunisian gastronomy to renew itself and get off the beaten track. If the privileged pass by the kitchen to greet Lily before entering the dining room, few are those who know that the specialties they taste are frozen, then past in the microwave on demand. “A restaurant trick,” think the experts, who have become indulgent friends.

Jacob succeeds in a way where diplomacy has failed. In a joyful chaos, he receives both the members of the short-lived Israeli Interest Bureau and a whole of Tunis in search of the carefree communitarianism that Férid Boughedir describes in his film. A Summer in La Goulette. With his eloquence, the chef excels in giving the illusion of a simple, friendly, good-natured “living together”. Over time, the restaurateur, who prides himself on artistic creation, launches “Les sales gosses”, a brand of his own craft products made by marginalized people. Lily does not appreciate these young people, whom she considers to be opportunistic petty thugs and a source of trouble. Some friends don’t either. They distance themselves.

To read : Tunisia: the appointment of a Jewish minister, René Trabelsi, arouses fantasies and controversy

“I considered Jacob a brother, but I realized that he lied with impunity,” says one of his close friends, who distanced herself upon discovering that he had become dangerously close, in 2007, to the powerful Imed Trabelsi, nephew of the wife of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, who has taken control of La Goulette and reigns over all kinds of trafficking.

After the 2011 revolution, Jacob Lellouche carefully concealed this relationship. He was then a candidate for the Republican Popular Union (UPR) in the Constituent Assembly – the first and only Tunisian of Jewish faith to stand for election, it was noted at the time.

He will not be elected. This will not prevent this jack-of-all-trades, who has published several books on Jewish-Arab cuisine, from continuing to brew projects, in particular that of a museum of Jewish memory for which he created an association, Dar El Dhekra (House of Memory), installed above his restaurant. The initiative, laudable, is not accompanied by any historical work worthy of the name.

The 2011 revolution and the following years are not conducive to business. The context changes. Islamists and new political trends appear without Jacob finding his place. The one who appropriated the air of “I Live Alone with Mom” ​​by Charles Aznavour must come to terms with it: Lily is getting old, and the desire is no longer there.

Jacob decides to sell the restaurant, while announcing on social networks that this closure is due to… terrorist threats. A pure invention, he will end up admitting it, but this new lie cuts him off from his last square of loyal friends. In a last attempt to bounce back, he settles in La Marsa, where he creates, for the café Le Saf-Saf, the ftira loca, a variation of the traditional donut. This will be his last discovery: Gilles Jacob Lellouche died on March 29, 2023, following an accident vascular cerebral.