Raffaello Fellah, a leader of exiled Libyan Jewry, has died at the age of 73, JTA News reports.
Fellah, a Tripoli native, died last weekend in Rome. He and about 6,000 other Libyan Jews fled widespread persecution in 1967. Most moved to Israel, but Fellah was among about 2,000 Libyan Jews who settled in Italy.
A businessman, Fellah was a prominent figure in Italian Jewry, a past president of the World Organization of Libyan Jews and a member of the World Sephardic Federation. He also was a co-founder of a group aimed at promoting "trialogue" among Jews, Christians and Muslims.
My father worked with Mr. Falah in the mid 1960's. Thru a creative building lease with payments made from New York to a bank in Italy, he was able to "move some of his capital out of Libya. He and his family were gracious hosts to me and my sister during a time when my father was ill and in hospital in Switzerland. He will be missed.
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