Motti Zoherman

Motti Zoherman, 73, from Tel Aviv, was murdered at the Supernova music festival near Re’im on October 7.

He was survived by his son, Ben, daughter, Tal, a number of grandchildren and his siblings Rani and Tzvika.

Zoherman is remembered as a larger-than-life figure who lived for parties and raves even into his seventh decade on Earth and was known for a large colorful tattoo on his stomach — which was used to identify his body after death.

“He lived within a very narrow budget — he lived a simple life in order to allow himself the budget for travel and the life he chose,” his son, Ben, told Ynet. “He very much thought out his path.”

Ben said that when the family recovered Motti’s cellphone, they found the very last photo he took, at 6:41 a.m. on October 7, of Iron Dome interceptions of missiles from Gaza over the skies of the festival.

“Motti, beautiful soul, heart of gold… one of many, too many, lost beloved brothers and sisters,” wrote his friend Simona Bassi on Facebook. “Motti, may your memory be a blessing, may you dance in the Light now.”

Zoherman’s friend Tal Amit remembered him as “the pillar of fire of a life of freedom, parties and festivals, lived a high-octane life, was modest and kind, and above all happy and good-hearted. A special man with an old soul who lived life to the fullest.”

His friend Julia Verner eulogized her “dear and beloved friend” on Facebook.

“His murder has turned the world into a less good place,” she wrote. “I met Motti Zoherman more than 20 years ago, he was a dream man, with a rare beauty, wisdom and love for the world. Over the years I learned so much from him, both about the here and now and also about the spiritual world and the ‘different’ and the ‘other.'”

Verner said that Zoherman was “a man who changed his life and also the lives of many people around him. He gave up on the material world and chose light, love, freedom, searched for meaning in travels around the world and within his soul, and found answers that only a man who did not know fear could reach.”

She wrote that he “loved his children more than anything, and was the best dad I knew.”

Zoherman survived colon cancer 15 years ago, and the experience changed his life path, as he closed his longtime shoe store and decided to live a more spiritual life, spending much of his time in India, his family and friends said.

Ben told Ynet that he and his sister “had a colorful father, not conventional, but wonderful… my father drew a lot of people to him, a lot of young people who wanted to be infected with his joy for life.”

His son said that there is “something comforting about the fact that Dad was happy in the final hours of his life. We are very sad that Dad was murdered in such a cruel way, but at least we know he was in the place he wanted to be — happy and dancing and living a full life. Dad lived every day to the edge, as if it was his last day.”
Source: The Times of Israel