Luis Sadovnic was a young man from Venezuela studying at the University of Florida in Gainesville when he met Nicole Langesfeld, an American with Argentine roots, who was studying to be a commercial litigator. Both were adventurous and easy going, and they were married in January 2021, on the beach in front of his grandmother’s 8th floor apartment in Champlain Tower South, which they moved into.
Sadovnic was identified on July 11 as a victim of the building’s collapse, a day after his wife was identified.
A native of Caracas, Venezuela, Sadovnic attended Colegio Moral y Luces Herzl-Bialik, a private Jewish high school, along with his close friends Moises Rodan and Andres Levine, who were also in Champlain Tower South when it collapsed on June 24.
Following high school, Sadovnic attended Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Fla., before transferring to the University of Florida in Gainesville.
Part of the tight knit South American Jewish community at the University of Florida, Sadovnic was popular with many of his fellow students. Known for their humor and passion for physical fitness, friends recall Luis and his wife’s love of exploring new places and things and ever present smiles.
“Luis had an amazing rapport with other students,” says Rabbi Berl Goldman, co-director with his wife, Chanie, of the Lubavitch Chabad Jewish Center in Gainesville. “Luis stood at the center of an almost family-like group of young proud Jews.”
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