Adi Maizel, 21: Manicurist who spread light and love of life

Adi Rivka Maizel, 21, from Karnei Shomron, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7.

Adi went to the party with her close friend, Libby Cohen Meguri. When the rocket fire began, the pair decided to flee the site of the rave in their car, and were shot dead by terrorists lying in wait on the side of the road.

Her body was recovered after five days and she was buried on October 12 in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron.

She is survived by her parents, Eli and Ahuva, her older brother Omri, younger brother Matan and her boyfriend Shahar.

Friends and family said she loved the outdoors and sports, as well as animals, especially her dog Leo. She worked doing nails and eyebrows, and had recently opened up her own studio.

During her army service, she discovered a heart condition that required two surgeries and a long recovery at home, during which she explored new hobbies that were less extreme — leading to her love of nails and manicures. In October she was planning to start teaching a course on how to do nails, announcing in September that registration would open on October 10.

Her father, Eli, told the Kan public broadcaster that his daughter “was beautiful, and every father thinks his daughter is beautiful, but Adi, her inside, her light, her love for life, her compassion to people, to animals, her friends who always told us that they wanted to be like Adi. Everyone who she touched and cared for and surfed with and parachuted with and rode bikes with and hiked in nature.”

Eli said he and his wife and sons “were privileged to have 21 years of being better people.”

Her mother, Ahuva, told i24 news that Adi “was such a great kid, such a great girl, she was so perfect — since the day that she was born she was a perfect girl. She was so energetic and everywhere she went she brought light with her, and it was very [moving] to see what people… from all circles of society in Israel knew her and adored her. This is some consolation, maybe, if I try to find something that gives you some hope.”

The mother of her boyfriend, Shahar, shared on Facebook the eulogy he wrote for Adi.

“My love, I’m so lucky that I got to love you,” he wrote. “I’m so lucky that we experienced so many things together. You promised me that we would see many sunsets together, and now the sun is setting and you are not by my side.”

Shahar said that the couple had experienced in two years “what other couples don’t go through in a whole life, with so many plans for a shared future. I love you for who you are, a good person, funny, caring, worrying, loving with enormous compassion. My life will never go back to being the same life without you. I’m sorry I wasn’t with you at that horrible party. I love you forever.”

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