Shlomo Anidjar, a member of the Chabad community in the French city of Boulogne-Billancourt, was one of the 228 passengers aboard an Air France flight that went missing over the Atlantic Ocean on Monday.
The Airbus A330-200 plane went missing about four hours after taking off from Rio de Janeiro to Paris. An airplane seat, a fuel slick, an orange lifevest and pieces of white debris were spotted Tuesday in the ocean about 400 miles (640 kilometers) northeast of the Fernando de Noronha islands off Brazil's northern coast.
At the time of the crash there were 216 passengers from 32 countries and 12 crew members aboard the plane, including seven children and a baby. This was the gravest aviation disaster in the history of the Air France airline, which was founded 75 years ago.
"Shlomo is an inseparable part of the Chabad community in Boulogne. We've been in close contact with his family and are doing are best to help," Rabbi Michael Sojcher, one of Chabad's emissary in France told Ynet Wednesday.
"Shlomo is 40-years-old and has a wife and three children who are waiting eagerly to hear something –so far we haven't heard anything," he said. "Yesterday the family was still hopeful, but today – I'm not so sure. I'd rather not ask. It is hard for them to stomach someone talking about him (Shlomo) as a casualty, particularly since only some of the (victims') names have been published so far."
Paris' chief rabbi, David Messas, is expected to lead a special prayer session at Charles de Gaulle airport for the passengers of flight 447 at around 7 pm Wednesday (Paris time).
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