Rachel Goldberg-Polin described her son to a captive audience at Beth Tfiloh Congregation on Sunday night, April 26, as an everyman.
“He could have been your next-door neighbor’s son. The boy who delivered your paper. Your first camp counselor. Your cousin, your brother, or maybe your son,” Goldberg-Polin said.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was among the hostages taken at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
Forced to hide in a bomb shelter with his friends, Hamas militants threw grenades into the shelter. Hersh Goldberg-Polin threw them out, subsequently having his arm blown off from the elbow down. He was then forcibly taken by Hamas gunmen and held captive in Gaza.
Six months later, Hersh Goldberg-Polin was shown in a video released by Hamas with part of his left arm missing and calling for his parents to stay strong for him in Hebrew.
More than four months later, 10 months after his abduction, he was confirmed dead.
His father, Jon Polin, and mother were the featured speakers at Beth Tfiloh’s annual Dahan Lecture, moderated by Senior Rabbi Chai Posner.
“Being in the presence of these two unique people has a clear impact on its own. But even more so, having this program led by [Rabbi Posner] interviewing them made the impact even bigger,” wrote Huppit Miller, chair of Beth Tfiloh’s Israel Advocacy Committee, in an email to Baltimore Jewish Times. “His emotional sensitivity, respect, and empathy [shown] throughout the program — this program was able to take this enormous pain that is a personal and national pain, and turn it into a sense of pride and strength in a very humbling way.”
“When we see Jon and Rachel, we see strength we didn’t know was possible, grace we didn’t know was possible,” said Posner. “Despite the tremendous loss of their son, they became global advocates, and it’s our honor to have them here. You are in a room with hundreds of people who love you and who love Hersh.”
Posner discussed with the couple Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s book “When We See You Again,” a portrait of how her family advocated to save Hersh and struggled after learning about his death.
Throughout the night, Goldberg-Polin and her husband shared stories of Hersh when he was younger that portrayed his character.
Hersh always asked his mother if he could carry bags for her, whether it was heavy grocery bags or the small purse she carried when going to shul on Shabbat morning. “I’ve decided that that was his love language,” she noted.
Another anecdote she shared: “Hersh always put the toilet seat down.”
The couple also shared the more painful stories that Goldberg-Polin noted in the book about the aftermath of Hersh’s death.
“I see in them people of great faith. When the rabbi asked Rachel about the moment she learned about [Hersh’s] tragedy, her first response was to mention the presence of Hashem in that devastating news,” Miller explained. “Throughout … sharing stories about their experiences, it is revealed that having great faith is an inseparable part of who they are.”
“Faith is harder,” Goldberg-Polin expressed to the audience. “You’re saying, ‘I’m not sure, but I hope that this is as it was intended to be.’ It’s an opportunity for closure and holiness.”
Toward the end of the evening, Goldberg-Polin shared her experience of writing her book, explaining that it is not a memoir or a “tell-all,” but instead “passages of pain in words.”
“It came out very quickly, powerfully, lovingly, violently. I just did not want … to be alone with all of that shoved into me anymore,” she said. “Because for those 330 days … Jon and I were running all over trying to get Hersh to be a person and not a number, and therefore, we really had to share him, and in sharing him we were really sharing us.”
