Those we have lost

Rachel Dov, 25: A ‘unicorn’ who loved to sparkle

Murdered by Hamas while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7

Rachel Dov (Screenshot from Instagram, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law).
Rachel Dov (Screenshot from Instagram, used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law).

Rachel Dov, 25, from Kiryat Yam, was murdered by Hamas terrorists while trying to flee the Supernova music festival on October 7.

She is survived by her mother, Paulina Dov, stepfather Mikhail Silberman, and stepsister Alexa Silberman. Rachel’s father, the owner of a barber shop in Kiryat Yam, was shot and killed a decade earlier in what was determined to be a random act of violence with no premeditation or motive.

On the morning of October 7, Rachel texted her parents to let them know there were gunfire and explosions around her, and that she was leaving the festival.

“Around 10 a.m., I saw a photo on Telegram,” Silberman told Netherlands-based Russian language news outlet TV Rain, “I saw Rachel sitting in a car. And she had a bullet hole here.” He pointed to a spot on the side of his body, just below the armpit. As a former IDF medic, Silberman knew they had limited time to reach Rachel before she bled out. Unfortunately, despite her parents’ best efforts over two days spent driving around an active war zone in the south, Dov was only found and identified on October 10. She was buried at the Tel Regev cemetery in Kiryat Yam the following day.

Dov loved electronic and trance music and had attended several festivals similar to Nova around the globe. Her loved ones told the media that she loved to sparkle, wear glitter, and party.

“She was a unicorn,” her mother told TV Rain, adding that Dov’s tombstone has a picture of a unicorn and a rainbow carved into it to memorialize her free spirit.

Loved ones also told Israel’s Army Radio that Dov had a “quick, sharp tongue, and she would make those around her laugh at any opportunity.”

“My Racheli,” her friend Linor Markovich wrote on Instagram, “the most colorful, most beautiful, smartest unicorn — nobody could say otherwise… I love you with every fiber of my body and not a day goes by that I don’t think about you.”

“You always knew the right thing to say at the right time,” Dov’s stepsister Alexa Silberman wrote on Instagram in January. “You always knew how to help… You taught me to dance like you danced… My unicorn, you were something that could not be ignored.”

In February, Dov was supposed to go on a trip to Thailand with her boyfriend, Eliad Shemesh, who hid in the car with her body for several hours during the festival. Shemesh was also planning to propose in the coming months.

“I love you forever, my beautiful angel,” Shemesh wrote on Instagram. “It hurts every day that you aren’t here.”

Read more Those We Have Lost stories here.

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