Mother: Ricarda Louk
Daughter: Shani Louk, z”l, 22 at the time of her murder.
Family: The Louk family consists of six members - Shani was the daughter of Ricarda and Nissim, and sister to Adi (26), Amit (21), and Or (14).
Moments of Terror:
On October 7th, at 6:20 AM, we woke up from the red alert. I immediately told Adi, my eldest daughter, to call Shani, see where she was, and tell her to get to a shelter. Shani said she was still at the Nova festival, that there were alarms and rockets, and that she would get to a safe place. She no longer answered the phone in the hours to come. After 10 AM, my eldest son, Amit, received the horrific video. In the video, we saw Shani being thrown onto a pickup truck, bleeding and naked, surrounded by four armed Hamas terrorists and a celebrating crowd spitting on her. We watched the video in disbelief, but there was no room for mistakes. We identified Shani by the unique tattoos on her legs. At that moment, we didn't know if she was injured and unconscious or already dead.
The Person Behind the Story:
Shani was a beautiful, creative, and independent girl, full of life, with a big and compassionate heart. She lived in Tel Aviv with friends and worked as a tattoo artist. Shani loved art, music, dance, fashion design, and sewing, as well as traveling, languages, and other cultures. Over the past year, she frequently travelled to Mexico with her Mexican boyfriend.
Shani wrote the lyrics to the song "Home," where she said, "The day is over, I want to go home. But I have no sword and shield, and I don’t want wars..." Her friend, Eliya Bar-Noy, composed the music for the song.
After that terrible day, we set up an exhibition at the 'Nahum Gutman Museum' in Tel Aviv, showcasing some of her artworks.
My Message:
Shani represents the light and joy of life. She had a big heart and dreamed of world peace. What Hamas did was pure evil, representing all the darkness in the world.
Our Last Embrace:
The last time we saw her was a week before that day, during Sukkot. She had returned from Greece and was very happy to meet the family during the holiday. She and her boyfriend were supposed to come to us on the evening of the second holiday, but they decided last minute to go to the festival.