Shimon “Shimi” Hayat, 29, from Ofakim, was murdered by Hamas terrorists at the Supernova music festival on October 7.
He attended the rave with two friends, arriving there late at night after having a holiday meal with his family.
Shimi was buried in Ashkelon on October 8. He is survived by his son, Rani, 5, his parents Smadar and Amram and his three older siblings, Shlomo, Shlomit and Racheli.
According to a eulogy on the Ofakim municipal site, Shimi played soccer as a kid on the Maccabi Beersheba and the Hapoel Merhavim teams, and in later years he got a motorcycle that he loved to ride around.
He attended a dormitory high school in Kiryat Gat, and later got a job at a mechanic shop in Ofakim.
His son’s mother, Kesem, wrote on Facebook that “the house is empty and quiet without you, you took half of my soul with you.” Her older daughters, she wrote, “miss you and are pained and never stop thinking about you and about your generosity and everything you did for them. And Rani, your Rani is so mature and accepted the news and is handling it like a man!”
“He knows that his father is in heaven and watching over him. Every morning he brushes his teeth with your toothbrush and puts your cologne on,” she wrote. “I will make sure that he always knows what kind of father you were to him, that he was the air in your soul.”
His sister, Racheli, recalled how they had eaten a holiday meal together just the night before he was killed, and celebrated his birthday a week before that: “I’ll never forget the moments you were with the kids, you would play with them endlessly, I can’t describe the care you had for them, you had the biggest soul… you were taken from us cruelly and too soon, you had a joy for life and a love of nonsense. As they say, God takes only the best for himself, and there was none better than you.”
Shimi’s sister, Shlomit, wrote on Facebook, “All I have left is just the pain and the longing. The kids don’t stop talking about you, it’s so hard, so hard not to hear you, not to see you, I know that you are in a good place and you are resting and watching over us.”
“Who will say to me, ‘Sis, it’s going to be OK’? Who will come over and say, ‘Bring the kids down, I want to see them’? You left a huge hole in my heart that will not be filled.”
Read more Those We Have Lost stories here.
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