Rachel Goldberg-Polin has a message for officials negotiating a ceasefire in Gaza: look what the conflict has done to her son Hersh, and see his humanity.
When Hersh left home for the Nova music festival last October, he was an idealistic 23-year-old US-Israeli citizen with an infectious smile and a passion for football. The Hersh that Goldberg-Polin saw in a video released by Hamas on April 25 was transformed: his arm a mangled stump below the elbow; bruising on his forehead, suggesting malnutrition; his face pale and drawn.
“It’s very important for the negotiators to see that this is whose life you’re playing with — this is a real person who has a family, who has dreams, who has aspirations, who has a soul,” she told The Times in a video interview from Jerusalem. “It’s time for the people in that room to own their responsibility and to make whatever compromises have to be made.
“It will be challenging, and it will be scary, and it will require courage and it will require audacity — and you need to do it now.”
Since Hersh was taken by Hamas in the October 7 terror attack, Goldberg-Polin has been on a mission to ensure that he and the other 131 hostages still held by the group remain the focus of the Israeli government and ceasefire negotiators.
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It has felt a near-impossible task at a time of growing global condemnation of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, which according to the Hamas-run health ministry has killed 34,700 Palestinians.
But Goldberg-Polin is driven to get Hersh back home, where his copy of The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama remains on his bedstand, bookmark where he left it on Chapter 6, ready for him to pick it up again.
“We just commemorated Holocaust Memorial Day, and one of the things that is constantly talked about is how people go through horrible things in life, and they are resilient, and they go on to have a meaningful, purpose-filled, beautiful life,” she said. “And that’s what I wish for Hersh.”
Hersh was at the Nova music festival when Hamas gunmen overran the site in an attack that killed more than 1,160 people across southern Israel. The last text message Goldberg-Polin received from Hersh was on 8.11am that day: “I love you guys. I’m sorry.”
As gunfire rang out, Hersh and his best friend Aner Shapira huddled with 29 others in a bunker. As Hamas gunmen tossed grenades in, Hersh and Shapira threw them out, trying to keep everyone safe. Eventually one blew up and killed Shapira. Another blew Hersh’s left forearm off.
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A video taken at the scene soon afterwards shows Hamas gunmen loading Hersh into a truck, broken bone sticking out of a bloodied stump.
“It’s really difficult to imagine what even the person with the strongest constitution would be going through,” Goldberg-Polin said. “Young people killed in front of him; his best friend from third grade blown up; his own dominant arm amputated spontaneously. Just going through that and the noise and the carnage and witnessing that day — trying to picture that is so difficult to digest.”
Goldberg-Polin has become one of the most tireless campaigners for the freedom of the remaining hostages. She sleeps less than four hours each night, conducting hundreds of interviews, travelling to the US to lobby the Biden administration and speaking at every opportunity, including at the United Nations at a march for the hostages in Washington.
“In 214 days, I’ve been in agony. I’ve been miserable. I’ve been in angst. I’ve been in trauma. I’m in constant terror. I’m in constant fear. I’m in tremendous sadness, but I don’t have anger,” she said, reflecting on what drives her each day to fight for her son.
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“It’s innate and primal and reflexive. It’s like if someone says, ‘How are you breathing?’ This is what we do. We wake up and we run and we have the reserves. We have the strength.”
Despite her anguish, she lights up when talking about her son’s effervescent personality. He is an idealist, she says, who believes in the coexistence of Palestinians and Israelis and organises football matches between youngsters from both communities. Born in Berkeley, California, Hersh also spent time in Virginia before the family moved to Israel when he was a child. An avid traveller, he was due to set off on another global adventure in December.
When Hamas released the proof of life video on April 25, Goldberg-Polin searched for signs of that exuberant young man she loves. “I wonder how someone can stay themselves when they’ve been through what he’s been through, but I’m praying he can,” she said. “I think Hersh is a mentally strong person. But I don’t know if that equips you with what you need in that situation.”
She did not have any doubts when asked if she agreed for the video to be made public: “People should see this. People should know this is who is under the ground. They are not a number. It’s not 132 people — each person is a human being.”
Finding her own mental strength to follow the news is also a challenge for Goldberg-Polin. She is aware she must tamper her expectations as negotiations in Cairo to secure a ceasefire and the potential release of the hostages continue to stall.
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“Hope is mandatory for people in our position. It’s like breathing,” she said. “And so I want to be cautiously hopeful and optimistic that at least there is movement.”
As to Netanyahu’s motivations as he moves Israeli forces into Rafah in an assault that many warn could derail the talks, Goldberg-Polin is tactful: “I would like to believe that he’s doing every single thing he can to get these people home. And we’ll have to see.”
But she wants him to understand that Israel will never heal until its citizens are brought home. “When someone has a cleaver stuck into their heart, there’s no going forward until you get that out,” she said. “And that cleaver is in the nation’s heart with these hostages.”
