Watch: Tearful funeral of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, American-Israeli hostage killed by Hamas
Mourners gather for the burial of killed American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Jerusalem on September 2. Photo by Gil Cohen-Magen/Pool/AFP via Getty Images
By Jodi Rudoren September 2, 2024
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, perhaps the best known of the 240 hostages abducted during the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, was buried Monday in Jerusalem, two days after Israeli forces found him and five others shot to death in a tunnel under the Gaza city of Rafah and as protests roiled the country over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war.
In a funeral attended by thousands and live streamed on You Tube, Israeli President Issac Herzog apologized to Goldberg-Polin’s surviving parents, younger sisters and grandparents, and to the entire nation, for the failures of Oct. 7 and in the nearly 11 months of war since.
“How sorry I am that we didn’t protect Hersh on that dark day, how sorry I am that we failed to bring him home,” Herzog said. “In his life and in his death, Hersh has touched all of humanity deeply. He has shaped our world and woven his essence of light and love into the story of the Jewish people and into our human story.”
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was born in Oakland, California, and moved to Israel as a child. His parents, Jon and Rachel have become the leading spokespeople for the hostages, meeting multiple times with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking at the United Nations and last month’s Democratic National Convention, having an audience with the pope and doing scores of interviews.
They and his sisters, Leebie and Orly, each gave emotional eulogies. On their shirts, torn in mourning as Jewish tradition dictates, were the masking tape strips they have made iconic that mark the days since the hostages were abducted: 332.
Watch the funeral service below:
‘Hersh, we failed you’
Jon Polin spoke first among the family, framing his remarks through a verse from the mishnah that translates to: Appoint for yourself a teacher, acquire for yourself a companion, judge all people with the benefit of the doubt.” He said his son, from toddlerhood, “had a wisdom that expanded my thinking,” asking challenging questions at age 3 as they walked to get coffee in Berkeley, California, and, a few years later while on vacation in Florida, thrilling passersby with his knowledge of presidential trivia (for $1 a pop).
“He was my rav, my teacher, my companion,” Jon Polin said, listing among the topics of more recent conversation in which Hersh challenged him the ethics of eating animals, the pros and cons of nation-states, Israeli settlement policy, halachic observance and the value of a university degree. In a twist on the familiar Jewish response to death, “May his memory be a blessing,” Polin shared a message he received yesterday, one of thousands, that said: “May his memory be a revolution.”
“Hersh, we failed you, we all failed you,” his father said. “You would not have failed you. You would have worked harder for justice. You would have challenged more people to challenge their own thinking. And what you would be pushing for now is that your death, and the deaths of all the soldiers and so many innocent civilians, that your death is not mishav, not in vain. Maybe, just maybe, your death is the stone, the fuel, that will bring hime the remaining 101 hostages.”
Biden says Netanyahu not doing enough
The funeral came after a contentious 24 hours of intense protest across Israel against Netanyahu’s government. A labor strike suspended or slowed operations at thousands of schools, hospitals, businesses and Israel’s international airport for hours Monday, until stopped by the courts. It was the largest such action since March 2023, when a general strike prompted Netanyahu to slow his controversial overhaul of the nation’s judiciary system, and perhaps the most potent protest since the war began nearly 11 months ago.
There were also largest demonstrations Sunday night in Tel Aviv and other Israeli cities, and vigils for the slain hostages in American Jewish communities including New York City.
Israeli officials say Goldberg-Polin and five others — all but one of who were abducted from the Nova music festival — had been murdered within a few days of being found, after having survived nearly 11 months in captivity. That would put the deaths around the time that Netanyahu’s cabinet voted to insist as a condition of any ceasefire deal that Israeli troops remain in the Philadelphi Corridor, on Gaza’s border with Egypt, something Hamas has said is unpalatable and some Israeli security experts say is unnecessary.
Asked on Monday whether Netanyahu was doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal, President Biden said: “No.”
Speaking to reporters as he arrived at the White House for a national security meeting “following up on what’s happening in Israel,” Biden said that he is “very close” to presenting a final hostage-release deal. Asked why he thinks it might be successful after months of failed talks, he said: “Hope springs eternal.”
“I spoke to his mom and dad, and we’re not giving up,” Biden added, referring to the Goldberg-Polins. “We’re going to continue to push as hard as we can.”
In his remarks at the funeral, Herzog, Israel’s president, also spoke forcefully about the need for a deal, saying: “The State of Israel has an urgent and immediate task.”
“Decision-makers must do everything possible, with determination and courage, to save those who can still be saved, and to bring back all our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters,” Herzog said in Hebrew. “This is not a political goal, and it must not become a political dispute. It is a supreme moral, Jewish, and human duty of the State of Israel to its citizens.We did not fulfill this duty. And now – we have a sacred and shared obligation, to stand up and bring them all back to their homeland.”
‘The perfect son for me’
In Jerusalem, funeral-goers brought wreaths of red, white and yellow flowers and carried the flag of Hapoel Jerusalem, the soccer team Hersh loved. They sang Hebrew hymns before the service began on Har Hamenuchot, a hilltop cemetery that lies on the city’s western edge and is its largest.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin started her eulogy by thanking God for giving her “this magnificent gift” of Hersh, who she said was “not perfect, but was the perfect son for me.” She recounted how they once watched a documentary together about people who die young and he wondered why they were always remembered as the smartest and funniest people around.
“Hersh, for all these months, I’ve been in such torment and worry about you for every single millisecond of every single day,” she said. “It was such a specific type of misery. I tried hard to suppress the ‘missing you’ part, because I was convinced would break me. I spent 330 days terrified. It closed my throat and made my soul throb with third–degree burns.
“Amidst the inexplicable agony, terror, anguish, desperation and fear, we became absolutely certain that you we’re coming home to us alive. But it was not to be,” Rachel continued. “Now I no longer have to worry about you. You are no longer in danger.”
She imagined her son reunited in heaven with his best friend, Aner Shapira, who died a hero on Oct. 7, and playing chess with her grandfather, “Papa Stan.”
“Now my worry shifts to us,” Rachel said. “How do we live the rest of our life without you?” She prayed that his death “will be a turning point” in the war, and, as she has done in speeches throughout the year, addressed her son directly.
“As we transform our hope into grief in this new unknown brand of pain, I beg of you, Hersh, please do what you can to have your light shine down, help us to rise again,” his mother said. “Ok, sweet boy, go now on your journey, I hope it’s as good as the trips you dreamed of. I will love you and I will miss you every single day for the rest of my life. I know you’re right here. I need you to help us stay strong. I need you to help us survive.”
Philissa Cramer of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency contributed reporting.
Correction: The original version of this article misspelled the name of one of Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s sisters. She is Leebie, not Libby.
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