Omri Ahrak, 26: Hi-tech worker with musical aspirations

Omri “Omrikey” Ahrak, 26, from Elyakhin, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7.

Omri attended the rave with a group of four friends — two of his army buddies and their girlfriends — and with the start of the rocket fire they decided to leave the site of the party and head home. They were ambushed by a cell of Hamas terrorists and Omri was slain alongside Danielle Waldman, Noam Shai and Shahar Gindi. Almog Sarusi was kidnapped and slain in Gaza almost a year later, his body recovered by IDF troops.

His family searched for any sign of him for five days, including heading to the site of the rave in order to look for his body or any sign of life, but came up empty handed. Finally they were informed by authorities that Omri’s body had been found.

He was buried on October 12 in Elyakhin. He is survived by his parents, Raya and Zephaniah, and his siblings Gal and Meital.

Born and raised in the small Moshav Elyakhin near Hadera, he attended schools in the nearby Kibbutz Givat Haim and Kfar Monash. He was active and sporty, working out regularly and playing footvolley, as well as being a devoted fan of the Maccabi Haifa soccer team, according to a state eulogy.

He was also very musically involved, playing the guitar and singing with friends. He wrote and composed his own music in recent years, and dreamed of turning the hobby into a profession. In his memory, his loved ones started “Omrikey jam sessions” to gather his friends around song.

After high school, Omri enlisted in the IDF and served in the Givati Brigade’s Orev battalion. After his release, he embarked on a long trip around South America with friends, and upon his return started working as a security guard and studied coding with the Infinity Labs hi-tech training program.

He had been working for just two weeks at a company in Tel Aviv when he was killed. He had also been planning to get certified as a personal trainer.

His father, Zephaniah, told a local news outlet that “Omri was a kid with a huge appetite for life. He served in the army in a significant role in Givati, after that took his ‘big trip’ abroad like everyone, returned and started studying computers and building his life. Just two weeks ago he found work at a company in Tel Aviv where they embraced him. He was a kid who you couldn’t help loving, always with a smile, always polite, always aware of others — even if he was in an emotional storm, he’d always find the time to look at you and say, ‘Good morning, how are you?'”

His father added, “Omri was 26 years and 24 days old — that’s all God gave us to have with his incredible boy. He was extremely competitive, loved people. The number of friends he managed to connect to was nuts. He was always in the middle, his smile, his personality, the silliness he did that made everyone smile drew people toward him.”

He said that Omri “really loved music, knew how to play well and had an incredible voice, he would sing ‘Hava Nagila’ and people would cry, he had a voice filled with pain. He was another kind of soul.”

His mother, Raya, told Israel Hayom that Omri “was the glue of all his friends, a boy of love who embraced and was embraced and was always in the middle. He loved the sea, he loved playing sports with his friends, especially footvolley — especially because you could include people of any age.”

In his memory, she said, the family is raising funds to build a footvolley field in their hometown, “and to make his dream come true.”

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