Rachel Aliza Nisanov, the Queens 13-year-old killed in a jet ski crash during a family vacation in South Florida, set an example for her entire family, “never asking, always being satisfied,” despite being the youngest of eight kids, her grieving father told The News.
“She was an influencer. Without social media or the internet,” Rabbi Shlomo Nisanov said at their Kew Gardens Hills home Friday, just hours after returning from her burial in Jerusalem. “She was a very special soul and she was somebody who cared about others. She was always making sure that her wishes meant nothing compared to others.”
The father, recalling his young daughter with a stoic, perhaps numb, expression on his face, spoke of a sign that hung in Rachel’s room, which read, “don’t count the days, make the days count,” a quote he said encapsulated the way she lived her short life.
“She didn’t think about tomorrow. She always lived in the moment,” the rabbi said, sitting in a chair, surrounded by the girl’s older brothers. “She was very special.”
Rachel’s brother Nissan, 28, wept at the Thursday burial while reminiscing about the time she made sure he was warm while he slept in a Sukka, during the Jewish holiday Sukkot.
“It was freezing cold,” he said during the burial, which was recorded. “I remember she went up and down the stairs with blankets. ‘It’s cold. Lay down for five minutes, I’ll come back in five minutes if it’s still cold for you. I want to see. Let me know, I’ll bring you a sweater,’” he remembered her saying.
“This was my Rachelli. This was our Rachelli. Always the extra effort, the extra care,” he said. “What I remember was that feeling that she gave me, that feeling that there’s somebody that actually loves me, she actually cares. She took the extra effort, she put the extra effort to be able to give to me. That was who she was to everybody.”
Another brother, Gedalya, 17, recalled at the burial his confusion when he found Rachel crying after recently getting accepted into the “high school of her dreams.”
“I go over to my mom and say ‘why is she crying?’ She said, ‘Because of her friend.’ One of her friends… didn’t get accepted,” he explained. “She already got in. Be happy. But no, she felt her friend’s pain.”
“She was so perfect. She was a beautiful girl in and out,” he said through tears.
Rachel was riding on a jet ski in Fort Lauderdale’s Intracoastal Waterway on Tuesday, piloted by her 16-year-old sister Aviva, when the watercraft jumped the wake of another vessel and crashed into a dock, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission told the Miami Herald. Their father said he was on another jet ski and jumped in to save them.
“I was the one to take her out of the water. I got these scratches,” Nisanov, 54, said, pointing to cuts on his forearm. “I prayed to make sure that she’ll survive like her sister.”
Aviva, who was initially in critical condition at the hospital is now awake and “doing better,” the father said.
“The first thing [Aviva] did whenever she woke up, she asked ‘Where’s Rachelli? Where’s Rachelli?’” Gedalya said.
“[Aviva is] in pain. She feels very bad. She apologized because of what happened. She remembers,” the rabbi said. “I’m happy that she lived the day. [It’s] very traumatic [for her.]”
An online fundraiser created to cover medical and funeral expenses for the family raised over $103,000 as of Saturday morning.
The Nisanov’s are prominent members of the Queens’ Bukharian Jewish community, and Rachel spent all of her schooling years at Bnos Malka Academy, an all-girls yeshiva in Forest Hills, the Miami Herald reported. Her parents surprised her with the Florida vacation as a gift to celebrate her eighth grade graduation.
The family showed the News a packing list Rachel wrote down before their flight to Florida, with check marks next to items including, “jewelry”, “headphones”, “Gap sweater” and “notebook/pen!”
At the bottom of the list, she wrote, “God, everything is gonna be ok right?” before writing her own answer below, “I think so,” and signing off with her name.
“When you believe you don’t have questions. And when you don’t believe you don’t have answers,” her father said. “We are on a mission here in this world… Nobody chooses to go. When you realize that you have no questions for God.”
