Joseph Roger Bismuth was born on November 4, 1926 into a modest family in La Goulette, the heavily populated suburb of Tunis where many Jews lived at the time. Bismuth is a self-made man who started out as a construction worker. Today he is the owner of several corporations in industries ranging from cosmetics to electronics to lollipops. His main holding company is the Groupe Bismuth, which is based in Tunis. He is also a member of many international and local business organizations, such as the Institut Arabe des Chefs d’Entreprises (IACE), of which he is on the executive board, and the Franco…