Marcelle Frailich Kaplun

Longtime high school science teacher. Murdered in Kibbutz Be'eri on October 7.

Dr. Marcelle Frailich Kaplun, a high school science teacher associated with the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, was murdered in Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7.

She was considered missing for more than 10 days until her body was finally located and identified following the Hamas onslaught against southern Israel. Her husband, Dror Kaplun, was finally confirmed murdered on December 7.

Marcelle is survived by her three children, Mor, Amit and Ziv, and four grandchildren, Ben, Lee, Niv and Ann.

The 13th child in a family of 14, Marcelle was born in Morocco, and moved to Israel at age 3, settling in Beersheba. She fell in love with chemistry at a young age, and got a bachelor’s and master’s at Ben Gurion University, before completing at PhD in science instruction at the Weizmann Institute.

Marcelle married and settled in Tzohar, before moving to Be’eri, where she remained for the rest of her life. She and her first husband divorced, and she later met and married Dror and the pair lived together for close to 20 years in Be’eri before they were both killed.

The National Center of Chemistry Teachers in Israel said in a statement that it was “joining the deep mourning” of the loss of Marcelle, who worked for years as a chemistry teacher in high school as well as on national projects, professional development of science teachers and developing learning materials for middle schools.

Frailich Kaplun’s daughter, Mor Strikovski, wrote on Facebook that her mother “was always larger than life.”

“You gave us the tools to be the very best, you gave us the spirit to be the most optimistic and emerge victorious from every situation,” she wrote. “You gave us the confidence to know that we are the best.”

Mor added: “Now we’re on our own and thanks to you we know that we are capable alone — but you are with us every moment and every minute, your spirit is guiding us, comforting us and giving us resilience.”