מקור השם מסיקה

Habiba (Hbiba) Msika (Messika) (born Marguerite Msika) (1903-1930), singer and dancer, born in Tunis, Tunisia. She abandoned her studies at the local Alliance israélite universelle school to attend lessons in singing, music and classical Arabic with the Tunisian musician Khemaïs Tarnane (1894-1964). Her first public performance took place at in the Assous palace in La Marsa, Tunisia. From the early 1920s she joined the new Arab theatre in Tunis and engaged in a successful career in Tunisia. She founded her own band that accompanied her in her songs, and went on tour in Paris, where she met Pablo Picasso and Coco Channel, among others. Msika also performed in a number of plays by Shakespeare, including playing the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet, while the role of Juliet was performed by Rachida Lofti, a Jewish actress from Libya. Msika supported the Tunisian independence movement from France and at the same time she performed at the court of Prince Fuad, the future King Fuad I of Egypt, and became his lover. Msika was a star and a sex-symbol nicknamed belle des belles (“the nice of the nicest”) and tigresse aux yeux verts (“the tigress with green eyes”). In her personal life she had a number of lovers, among them Eliahou Mimouni, a rich Jew from Testour, who eventually murdered her after Msika decided to marry Mondher Maherzi, a childhood friend. Her funeral was attended by thousands of people. The house that Eliahou  Mimoni built for her in the city of Testour became a cultural center in her memory known as Beit Habiba Msika.