How Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin find grace in their shattered world

Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin want no introduction. Since their son, Hersh, was kidnapped from the Nova music pageant in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, taken hostage in Gaza and, later, murdered by his captors, the American-Israeli couple have develop into, for a lot of, the personification of a whole nation’s ache.

They didn’t need this. They absolutely didn’t ask for it. “We’re the manifestation of all people’s worst nightmare,” Rachel mentioned. And but, it’s exactly that reality, coupled with the virtually supernatural grace they’ve delivered to their worldwide advocacy for Israel’s hostages, that helped make Hersh some of the recognizable faces among the many captives and why his demise final yr hit so arduous.

It’s additionally why Jews have regarded to them as exemplars of how to answer one of many worst durations in Jewish historical past. Regardless of all they’ve gone by, and all they proceed to endure, Hersh’s dad and mom nonetheless see this as a second of alternative for cross-cultural connection.

“You’ve acquired your narrative, we’ve acquired our narrative,” Jon mentioned. “You’ve suffered, we’ve suffered. You’ve acquired your Bible that claims one thing. We’ve acquired our Bible that claims one thing. You’ve acquired your claims. We’ve acquired our claims. And what? We’re by no means going to outshout one another. Let’s look ahead and begin proper now and dedicate ourselves to one thing higher for all of us. I nonetheless really feel that manner.”

The couple is talking subsequent week on the Z3 Convention in Palo Alto, California, close to the place they lived in Berkeley earlier than transferring to Israel in 2008. This interview, performed by J. Jewish Information of Northern California, has been edited for size and readability.

Lots of people right here in the USA, and likewise in Israel, felt as in the event that they knew Hersh after Oct. 7. Some did, however most of us didn’t. I ponder should you might inform us about him as an individual, and what it was prefer to be his dad and mom.

Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Hersh, clearly, was a curious citizen of the world. “Clearly,” simply because that’s actually what I’ve come to understand is essentially the most apt manner of describing him. He was all the time hungry for data, however very a lot exterior of the confines of normative studying. So faculty was probably not fascinating to him. He did sufficient to get by, however was all the time an underachiever in class. And but he was this voracious reader about no matter topic was floating his boat. As a younger child, he was obsessive about geography, obsessive about American presidents, obsessive about Native American historical past, obsessive about the Civil Struggle.

And as he grew to become a younger man — I nonetheless consider him as a boy. He was a really younger 23. He had simply turned 23 on Oct. 3, three days earlier than we mentioned goodbye to him and he went right down to the Nova pageant. He was obsessed together with his favourite soccer membership, his Jerusalem Hapoel soccer membership. He beloved trance music and music festivals, and used them as a possibility to get to know and meet completely different individuals from all around the world. He was very dedicated to touring by himself when he went to these festivals, as a result of he mentioned if you journey in a clump, then you definately keep in a clump. And he needed to satisfy individuals from all over the place.

He was additionally an actual skilled listener, which I’ve grown to grasp is such a uncommon reward that’s arduous to be taught. I’m attempting to be taught it in his reminiscence and as a part of his legacy. To coach myself to essentially be with whoever’s talking and never be pondering, what am I going to say subsequent? What do I wish to share? What do I wish to say? What do I wish to ask? And he was not afraid of getting these pauses in between when somebody was talking. He would digest it, after which he would react.

We’ve had so many individuals come to us in these previous two years to inform us about little moments that they’d with him that have been particular, as a result of they actually felt heard. And on this time of such problem in civil discourse all over the place world wide, when the brand new manner of talking is screaming, it’s, I notice now, a singular blessing.

Jon, I noticed you latterly sporting a T-shirt that had a picture of Hersh, and below it the Hebrew phrase “yehi zichrecha mahapeicha” — might your reminiscence be a revolution. What sort of revolution did you keep in mind?

Jon: It’s not the revolution of taking to the streets with fires burning. It’s a revolution for good. Hersh actually, actually — in some methods, naively — wasn’t jaded, and actually it’s a revolution for bringing extra good to the world. I used to be strolling down the road this summer season with my daughter, and a person who we didn’t know stopped me and mentioned, “Hey, Hersh’s dad” — that’s how he referred to me — “can I present you one thing?” And he exhibits me that the screensaver on his telephone is an image of Hersh. And he mentioned to me, “Each morning the very first thing I do is activate my telephone and take a look at this image and say to myself: What can I do right this moment to be higher? What can I do right this moment to make the world higher?” And proper then I mentioned, that’s the best legacy an individual can have.

Rachel: Hersh nonetheless believed in goodness and chance. However he additionally was a realist. When he was in highschool in 2014, a younger Israeli Ethiopian man named Avera Mengistu wandered into Gaza and Hamas took him hostage. Hersh was 15 years outdated and he got here house and he was beside himself. He couldn’t imagine that individuals weren’t on the streets advocating for Avera Mengistu. There have been 4 or 5 individuals who would get up on this sq. on the high of Ben Yehuda Avenue in Jerusalem a pair occasions per week, they usually jogged my memory of the individuals on the UC Berkeley campus garden who say “No nukes” — like, six individuals with grey hair and lengthy braids. After which there was a brief, darkish boy with large, black-framed glasses standing with them. And it was 15-year-old Hersh. [Mengistu was released by Hamas in February.]

The resonance of him being on the market as a child, protesting on the street to carry somebody house from Gaza, is kind of extraordinary.

Rachel: We mentioned earlier than he was a hostage, he was a hostage advocate.

You’ve develop into the personification of a whole nation’s trauma. Clearly, you by no means needed to be symbols like this, however you are actually. Are you able to speak about what it’s prefer to have individuals look to you on this manner?

Jon: We speak about this a good quantity, and generally surprise, can we simply go and escape in privateness someplace? And the reply is, perhaps — however not in Israel. A part of us simply needs to do this. However one other a part of us is saying, this has been thrust upon us, this horrific, horrible private tragedy that’s a part of a nationwide tragedy that’s a part of a worldwide tragedy. And in some way, largely resulting from Rachel’s eloquence, there are people who find themselves unusually seeking to us. And we’re saying we would have to embrace this. As a result of a part of the story can also be the shortage of readability, management, morality, voices of sanity on the planet right this moment. And if in some way, in some small manner, we could be a little bit these voices, it’s so vital that we have to do it.

Rachel: All of us expertise loss. It makes us human. It’s a commonality that all of us have. What’s completely different about our expertise is that it was so utterly public, and that’s actually scorching. And it’s undoubtedly arduous, ? After we exit, we’re form of the set off for individuals — we’re the manifestation of all people’s worst nightmare. That could be a unhappy factor to be. Lots of people see us they usually can’t assist however cry. And I do know that they’re coming at it from a spot of empathy and love. They’re feeling our ache. But it surely’s tough to have that if you’re strolling down the road simply attempting to go wherever your vacation spot is, and to have individuals crying alongside the way in which, at any time when they see you.

Jon: To the extent that we, indirectly, are providing energy to anyone on the market, it’s symbiotic. I’m not asking that individuals begin arising much more on the streets to say issues and hug us, carry issues to our condominium. However that stuff that we’ve been experiencing for 751 days has been remarkably strengthening. We buried Hersh 419 days in the past, and we proceed to be strengthened by the individuals who come anonymously and go away baked items by our door each Friday. We take a lot energy from so many individuals world wide who suppose they’re taking energy from us.

Rachel: All people is holding all people, and I really feel like that’s the place we because the Jewish persons are, and should be, now. And I don’t care in case your hair seems to be that manner, and also you cowl your knees right down to right here, and also you pray with this e-book, and also you don’t pray in any respect. It doesn’t matter.

It appears that evidently many imagine what you’ve endured should afford you particular perception into what’s occurring within the Center East. That you just’re singularly capable of see by the confusion, proper into the guts of what’s taking place. I’m questioning if the horrible value you’ve paid has given you any explicit understanding that’s completely different from what you understood earlier than Oct. 7.

Jon: We now have undoubtedly been, towards our needs, thrust into the underworld of geopolitics and the way it works. We watch the information like all people else, and we learn newspapers like all people else, and we now perceive that there’s the story that all of us take a look at and listen to and are instructed, and [then there are] the issues we see on the market on daily basis of how the world [really] works. And I want we might unsee it however, sadly, we’ve now discovered that the world works on ideas like pursuits and equities. Each chief has them. And generally these pursuits and equities align with the desire of the plenty. And generally there are different issues at play. I don’t know what to do with this data, aside from it’s a tough burden to hold to know this actuality.

With all that being mentioned, I’m going again to one thing that I believed on Oct. 6, 2023, and I nonetheless suppose it right this moment. There’s a greater manner. There’s a greater path. And regardless of the ache, regardless of the struggling, regardless of all of the agony that so many have felt, we are able to’t lose sight of that higher path. I all the time say, let’s decide a day and say, “We’re transferring on. We’re solely wanting ahead. You’ve acquired your narrative. We’ve acquired our narrative. You’ve suffered, we’ve suffered. You bought your Bible that claims one thing. We’ve acquired our Bible that claims one thing. You get your claims. We’ve acquired our claims. And what? We’re by no means going to outshout one another. Let’s look ahead and begin proper now and dedicate ourselves to one thing higher for all of us.”

You made aliyah in 2008. Are you able to inform me what it means so that you can dwell in Israel? And I’m additionally curious if that which means has modified over the course of the years you’ve lived there and particularly after Oct. 7.

Rachel: What actually introduced us right here was quite simple. Jon had mentioned for years, we now have a possibility to be a part of this big Jewish experiment of dwelling as a Jewish individuals in a Jewish homeland. We occur to be observant Jews who pray on daily basis and we thought, how is it that on daily basis we’re asking God to please permit us to return to Jerusalem? And Jon mentioned, “We will go.” While you’re truly capable of get on a aircraft and 12 hours later to be on this place, it began to really feel inauthentic to be praying for that after we had the power to do it.

So we got here and we actually did really feel, and do really feel, that we’re privileged to dwell right here. I actually have had challenges all these years, as a result of my Hebrew shouldn’t be nice, and I’ve felt like a fish out of water, and I’ve felt like a stranger in a wierd land. And but it’s my land. I really feel privileged that I’ve lived right here. I really feel privileged that I raised kids right here. I really feel privileged that my three kids have been and are bilingual, and that they’d a possibility and have the chance to nonetheless be a part of this experiment.

We’ve had an infinite problem thrust upon us. Once I say us, I imply the entire nation of Israel and the individuals of Israel worldwide. However on the identical time, with this nice calamity comes excessive alternative — excessive, excessive alternative. And I pray that we are going to have the resilience, the restoration, the therapeutic and the consolation that’s wanted to take this opportunity and make one thing actually luminous.

Jon: You requested what we’ve discovered or how issues have modified. One thing that’s develop into actually clear to us, perhaps to all people on the planet, is there may be an intertwined sense between Israel and the Jewish individuals globally. We’re all related, prefer it or not, and I wish to see us use this as a possibility. How will we take this little nation within the Center East, this idea of an unbiased Jewish state with sovereignty and company, and say, irrespective of who the federal government is, who the prime minister is, who’s in cost, this can be a idea that’s greater than us or any entity. How will we make this a supply of delight and inspiration for all of us?

That is going to be your first time within the Bay Space since Oct. 7. What are you anticipating on coming right here?

Rachel: Sadly, we received’t be there very lengthy. However I do know that it is going to be an embrace from the fantastic Bay Space Jewish neighborhood. We now have felt the love and assist and admire it. It sounds loopy to say that we really feel it, but it surely’s like a visceral, tangible, tactile feeling of assist and love. And we felt your confusion and we felt your ache and we felt your concern, and it helped us, and it touched us, and we are going to all the time really feel an enormous debt of gratitude to the Bay Space, as a result of that’s the place Hersh was born, and that’s the place our older daughter, who’s youthful than Hersh, that’s the place she was born. They have been each born at Alta Bates Hospital in Oakland. Jon and I had simply gotten married, and we spent virtually three years earlier than Hersh was born within the Bay Space. It’s very a lot woven into the core of who we’re. And I feel in some ways, it was a basis that made us sturdy as a unit in an effort to face this unbelievable mission that we’re in now.

Jon: I simply particularly wish to carry it to Hersh for a minute and say, it’s superb that we lived within the Bay Space for seven years. It left such an indelible, lasting mark on our identities. Hersh left the Bay Space when he was 3½ years outdated. He was blessed to develop up at Gan Shalom in Berkeley and to be a part of Congregation Beth Israel in Berkeley and the Berkeley JCC. He lived 20 extra years exterior of Berkeley, but Berkeley, California, and the Bay Space extra broadly have been such a outstanding a part of his persona, his pondering, who he was as an individual. You can take the 3½-year-old out of Berkeley, however you possibly can’t take the Bay Space out of the boy. It was the embodiment of a lot about who Hersh was.

Rachel: I feel it’s a whole lot of why he by no means appreciated to put on sneakers.

I’m curious in regards to the energy of prayer. You talked about dwelling in California and praying about returning to Jerusalem. Are you able to speak about your personal method to prayer now, and if that’s modified in any manner — but additionally what it’s prefer to know that there are millions of individuals you don’t even know praying for you on daily basis?

Rachel: It completely works and is felt and is appreciated. And I’m bottomlessly, endlessly grateful to the individuals who nonetheless have us of their prayers. As a result of I’m telling you, sadly, we’d like it. I feel we would all the time want it.

I’m so grateful that I’ve prayer as a software that I exploit day by day. Every single day, I open my eyes and instantly say the road that many Jewish individuals say upon waking, thanking God for giving me again my soul, and [saying] that God has large religion in me, and that’s why I wakened this morning.

Once I go to do my morning prayers, it’s such a aid. It’s the most effective remedy. You realize, Rabbi Nachman, the well-known mystical Kabbalist, mentioned, “Life makes warriors out of all of us, and essentially the most potent weapon is prayer.” And so I say to individuals, use it. Everybody has their ache, and we now have this toolkit accessible to us. I pour my soul out within the morning, after which I can begin my day. The query was, how has it modified since Oct. 7. I feel I exploit it extra. I lean on it extra. I feel that it’s extra transformative. All of us have a special concept of God. What’s God? No person is aware of what God is. It’s very complicated. However I’ve this concept of God, and I’ve been in a relationship with this concept of God. I’m so grateful, as a result of when Oct. 7 occurred, I wasn’t approaching a stranger. I’m grateful that I nonetheless have that and I’m grateful that persons are capturing power our manner. I feel it adjustments the sender and it adjustments the recipient.

This interview first appeared in J. Jewish Information of Northern California. It’s republished right here with permission.