Bar Shechter, 32: Supernova DJ believed in the power of music
Murdered by Hamas terrorists while fleeing the desert rave on October 7
Bar Shechter, 32, from Katzir, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while fleeing the Supernova music festival on October 7.
Bar, who went by the DJ stage name Syloopo, played one of the early sets at the desert rave — the second to appear on the “mushroom stage” after Matan “Kido” Elmalem. After wrapping up his set around 12:30 a.m., he stayed on to listen to the other artists as the night progressed. When the rocket fire began, he left in his car and headed north, but was shot dead by Hamas terrorists next to the Mefalsim junction, according to a eulogy on the National Insurance Institute website.
He was buried in the Sha’ar Menashe cemetery, not far from Katzir, in the north, on October 11. Bar is survived by his wife, Yaara, his two children, Sol, 8, and Rom, 11 months, as well as his parents, Sabine and Arie, and his brother Carmel.
Bar worked as a mover, but his true passion was music, something he pursued for many years, including DJing at events and recording his own tracks. At his funeral, as mourners shoveled dirt onto his grave, they played one of his trance tracks in the background.
His friend Itai Gedj wrote on Facebook that he could not come to terms with the news: “I don’t believe it, you went to play your music at a wild party” and did not come back.
“Your rolling laughter is the strongest thing I remember from you,” he added. “In times of difficulty you would know how to lift yourself up and shine. I had so many laughs with you, so much truth came out of your mouth always, so much love in your heart. It doesn’t make sense that you’re not here. It hurts so much.”
His wife, Yaara, told Haaretz that Bar “was an amazing person… very sociable – accepting of everyone. He had ties with all kinds of people of different ages.”
She said he was also “an amazing father,” to both their shared son and his 8-year-old daughter from a past relationship, “he was a very present and involved father, really attentive. He always took care of the children and of everyone he loved.”
His true love, she said, was music, and “he was into trance styles like ‘dark’ and ‘tech,’ which are characterized by a very fast beat. But he also loved ‘forest music,’ which incorporates sounds from nature.”
In a Facebook post several weeks after he was killed, Yaara wrote a poem to “my fighter,” one who “wore a uniform of a smile, kind eyes and a hug… who used happy music and enveloping light and went to battle.”
“My fighter didn’t believe in justice, because there is none — if there was, he would still be here,” she wrote. “My fighter believed in life, believed that light and dark exist, equally, side by side. My fighter was a teacher, and if we listen to him, we’ll learn, we’ll develop, we’ll blossom, and maybe we’ll love. But what’s for sure is that if we keep listening to him, we’ll cry, and then we’ll laugh, and we’ll simply live.”
