https://www.timesofisrael.com/facing-the-unthinkable-rachel-goldberg-is-just-doing-her-best-to-bring-her-son-home/
This undated photo provided by Rachel Goldberg shows her with her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Courtesy of Rachel Goldberg via AP)
JTA — Several months ago, before she met with the pope and Elon Musk, before her adopted home was thrust into war by a brutal attack, before she became one of the most prominent faces of a hostage crisis, Rachel Goldberg was desperately looking for luggage.
It was March and hundreds of people had flown to Israel for a study program for which Goldberg, who moved with her family from the United States 15 years ago and lives in Jerusalem, was assisting. People were upset: Suitcases weren’t showing up where they were supposed to.
“Rachel was really on it: making phone calls, calling the hotels, calling the buses, connecting with the people, just comforting them, saying, ‘I’m going to find it, we’re on it,’” recalled Rachel Kaufman, a Jewish educator from Los Angeles who was part of the trip. “I witnessed her crying over people being reunited with their luggage.”
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INTERVIEW'I KNOW THERE MUST BE A WOMAN IN GAZA WHO’S JUST LIKE ME'
Facing the unthinkable, Rachel Goldberg is just doing her best to bring her son home
When Hersh Goldberg-Polin was taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7, his mother says her heart was torn out and taken away. Now, she sprints through an endless marathon to get him back
By DEBORAH DANAN
17 December 2023, 4:33 pm
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This undated photo provided by Rachel Goldberg shows her with her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Courtesy of Rachel Goldberg via AP)
This undated photo provided by Rachel Goldberg shows her with her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Courtesy of Rachel Goldberg via AP)
JTA — Several months ago, before she met with the pope and Elon Musk, before her adopted home was thrust into war by a brutal attack, before she became one of the most prominent faces of a hostage crisis, Rachel Goldberg was desperately looking for luggage.
It was March and hundreds of people had flown to Israel for a study program for which Goldberg, who moved with her family from the United States 15 years ago and lives in Jerusalem, was assisting. People were upset: Suitcases weren’t showing up where they were supposed to.
“Rachel was really on it: making phone calls, calling the hotels, calling the buses, connecting with the people, just comforting them, saying, ‘I’m going to find it, we’re on it,’” recalled Rachel Kaufman, a Jewish educator from Los Angeles who was part of the trip. “I witnessed her crying over people being reunited with their luggage.”
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Kaufman thought about that experience when she learned that Goldberg’s son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, had been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the music festival he had been attending with a friend where some 360 people were murdered and dozens of others taken hostage. In all, some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 taken hostage.
If Goldberg could be so sensitive to the pain of others over something as inconsequential as luggage, how much more deeply must she be feeling her son’s absence, wondered Kaufman.
Goldberg has answered that question every day, sometimes more than a dozen times, since October 7, as she has become one of the most visible advocates, particularly in English, for Israel’s hostages in Gaza. Every morning, she tapes a number to her shirt signifying the number of days since October 7 and then, with a mixture of warmth and sadness and steely determination, spends the rest of her time telling the world about Hersh.
In the New York Times, five days after he was taken, she described Hersh as “gentle and kind and always finding creative ways to improve things and connect with other human beings.” She spoke to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was the first to show her video showing that Hersh’s arm had been blown off but that he was alive when he was loaded onto a Hamas pickup truck and taken to Gaza. She anShe and her husband Jon Polin were featured on the cover of Time magazine.
This undated photo provided by Rachel Goldberg shows her with her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Courtesy of Rachel Goldberg via AP)
JTA — Several months ago, before she met with the pope and Elon Musk, before her adopted home was thrust into war by a brutal attack, before she became one of the most prominent faces of a hostage crisis, Rachel Goldberg was desperately looking for luggage.
It was March and hundreds of people had flown to Israel for a study program for which Goldberg, who moved with her family from the United States 15 years ago and lives in Jerusalem, was assisting. People were upset: Suitcases weren’t showing up where they were supposed to.
“Rachel was really on it: making phone calls, calling the hotels, calling the buses, connecting with the people, just comforting them, saying, ‘I’m going to find it, we’re on it,’” recalled Rachel Kaufman, a Jewish educator from Los Angeles who was part of the trip. “I witnessed her crying over people being reunited with their luggage.”
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Kaufman thought about that experience when she learned that Goldberg’s son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, had been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the music festival he had been attending with a friend where some 360 people were murdered and dozens of others taken hostage. In all, some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 taken hostage.
If Goldberg could be so sensitive to the pain of others over something as inconsequential as luggage, how much more deeply must she be feeling her son’s absence, wondered Kaufman.
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Goldberg has answered that question every day, sometimes more than a dozen times, since October 7, as she has become one of the most visible advocates, particularly in English, for Israel’s hostages in Gaza. Every morning, she tapes a number to her shirt signifying the number of days since October 7 and then, with a mixture of warmth and sadness and steely determination, spends the rest of her time telling the world about Hersh.
In the New York Times, five days after he was taken, she described Hersh as “gentle and kind and always finding creative ways to improve things and connect with other human beings.” She spoke to CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who was the first to show her video showing that Hersh’s arm had been blown off but that he was alive when he was loaded onto a Hamas pickup truck and taken to Gaza. She and her husband Jon Polin were featured on the cover of Time magazine.
Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin (Israel Story)
Since October 7, she has addressed hundreds of thousands of US Jews at a march in Washington, DC; the pope, whom she visited at the Vatican; and countless others on social media and at rallies in the United States, Israel and beyond.
Several months ago, before she met with the pope and Elon Musk, before her adopted home was thrust into war by a brutal attack, before she became one of the most prominent faces of a hostage crisis, Rachel Goldberg was desperately looking for luggage.
It was March and hundreds of people had flown to Israel for a study program for which Goldberg, who moved with her family from the United States 15 years ago and lives in Jerusalem, was assisting. People were upset: Suitcases weren’t showing up where they were supposed to.
“Rachel was really on it: making phone calls, calling the hotels, calling the buses, connecting with the people, just comforting them, saying, ‘I’m going to find it, we’re on it,’” recalled Rachel Kaufman, a Jewish educator from Los Angeles who was part of the trip. “I witnessed her crying over people being reunited with their luggage
This undated photo provided by Rachel Goldberg shows her with her son Hersh Goldberg-Polin. (Courtesy of Rachel Goldberg via AP)
JTA — Several months ago, before she met with the pope and Elon Musk, before her adopted home was thrust into war by a brutal attack, before she became one of the most prominent faces of a hostage crisis, Rachel Goldberg was desperately looking for luggage.
It was March and hundreds of people had flown to Israel for a study program for which Goldberg, who moved with her family from the United States 15 years ago and lives in Jerusalem, was assisting. People were upset: Suitcases weren’t showing up where they were supposed to.
“Rachel was really on it: making phone calls, calling the hotels, calling the buses, connecting with the people, just comforting them, saying, ‘I’m going to find it, we’re on it,’” recalled Rachel Kaufman, a Jewish educator from Los Angeles who was part of the trip. “I witnessed her crying over people being reunited with their luggage.”
Kaufman thought about that experience when she learned that Goldberg’s son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, had been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on October 7 from the music festival he had been attending with a friend where some 360 people were murdered and dozens of others taken hostage. In all, some 1,200 people in southern Israel, mostly civilians, were killed and about 240 taken hostage.
If Goldberg could be so sensitive to the pain of others over something as inconsequential as luggage, how much more deeply must she be feeling her son’s absence, wondered Kaufman.
Jus' sayin' ;-)
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