Hersh Goldberg-Polin seen on a screen during the Israeli Premier League match between Hapoel Hadera and Hapoel Jerusalem, Aug. 31, 2024, in Jerusalem. (Oren Ben Hakoon/Flash90)

(JTA) — It’s not often that a professional sports team attends the funeral of one of its fans. But as the Hapoel Jerusalem soccer club demonstrated over the past 11 months, Hersh Goldberg-Polin was no ordinary fan.

Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old American-Israeli who was killed by Hamas after nearly a year in captivity, had become one of the faces of the “Bring Them Home Now” movement advocating for the release of the hostages. That’s in large part due to his parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, who spent the past year traveling the world to mobilize support for their cause, including stops at the Democratic National Convention and the United Nations, and earning a spot on the Time 100 list.

But in Jerusalem, Goldberg-Polin, a California native with a deep love of soccer and travel, was largely known as one of the many dedicated fans of the Hapoel Jerusalem Football Club, which plays in Israel’s top-tier Premier League. He was a member of the Malha Brigade, the team’s official fan club.

“We awaken to a horrible day for the Hapoel Jerusalem community,” the club tweeted on Sunday. “After nearly a year of crying out his name and praying for his safety, the mourning is unbearable, and words can’t begin to describe it.”

The message was one of countless shared by the team and its fans this weekend and throughout the past 11 months, as Goldberg-Polin became a symbol for the team itself: Banners bearing his name and face, accompanied by messages like “Bring Hersh Home,” were commonplace at the team’s games.

At Goldberg-Polin’s funeral on Monday, fellow supporters of Hapoel Jerusalem turned out in large numbers, wearing their red-and-black team paraphernalia. The team’s official social media accounts shared photos and videos in real-time from the procession and ceremony at Har Hamenuchot, Jerusalem’s largest cemetery.

Two days earlier — before the news broke of Goldberg-Polin’s murder — as the team took the field Saturday for its first game of the new Premier League season, fans were greeted with a video message from Goldberg-Polin’s parents, who thanked the club for its support.

“Shalom, Hapoel fans and friends of Hersh,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin said in the video. “We, Hersh’s parents, thank you so much — for everything. Hapoel fans, players, owners, employees – everyone.”

Jon Polin echoed his wife’s gratitude and repeated a sentiment they both shared time and again: hope that their son would return home.

“We can’t thank you enough,” Polin said. “You should have a successful season, and we should all have a successful day — that today we’ll bring back home Hersh and all the hostages, along with a Hapoel victory.”

Soon after, the news broke that Goldberg-Polin’s body had been found in an underground tunnel in Gaza. The deaths of five other Israeli hostages were reported the same day.

“It’s a turbulent day,” Tal Ben Ezra, a Hapoel Jerusalem executive, told Haaretz. “We’re brokenhearted. It’s our friend in the stands. We got to know the family over the past year. We were in close contact with [Rachel Goldberg-Polin], and she also became a part of our family… We used all our platforms to call for his release.”

Adding that the team has arranged mental health support for grieving fans, Ben Ezra continued, “We’re hurting, and we’ll continue to stay by the family, and we’ll perpetuate his memory.”

The reaction is emblematic of Hapoel Jerusalem’s history and its status in Israel.

Founded in 1926, the club has long been associated with Israel’s labor movement. The Hapoel sports association, whose name means “the worker” in Hebrew, was founded through Israel’s Histadrut labor organization as a then-rival of the Maccabi movement. Its original crest displays a variation of the communist symbol, showing a hammer and sickle with a boxer.

In 2007, a group of fans who were displeased with the soccer team’s ownership created their own club, Hapoel Katamon Jerusalem. In 2020, the fans purchased the legal rights to Hapoel Jerusalem, and the club touts its legacy as Israel’s first fan-owned club.

The organization also offers a number of social programs, including offerings for women, at-risk youth and people with disabilities.

The club’s left-leaning identity appears to have been a draw for Goldberg-Polin, whose mother once described him as a “crunchy granola dreamer.” Goldberg-Polin fell in love with Hapoel after he first attended a game as a 7-year-old who had just moved to Jerusalem from Richmond, Virginia.

As a teen, Goldberg-Polin would travel across Israel to attend Hapoel’s away games, telling his mother that each match was “the most important game of the season,” according to The Lever. He quickly became a fixture at Hapoel games, where he was often spotted in the stands, shirtless, singing at the top of his lungs.

At first, Rachel Goldberg-Polin was hesitant about her son’s devotion to a sports team. But she told The Lever that she eventually came to see Hapoel Jerusalem as “a social justice club that happened to have been attached to a soccer team.” It’s an outlook that’s also reflected in a sign Goldberg-Polin kept in his bedroom declaring — in English, Hebrew and Arabic — that “Jerusalem is Everyone’s.”

The club’s self-described “explicit social agenda” puts it in stark contrast with Jerusalem’s other main soccer club, Beitar Jerusalem, which is affiliated with the country’s right-wing Revisionist movement. Beitar fans are infamous for their anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism, and the team has never signed an Arab player.

“Football is often a platform for violent, racist and intolerant behavior,” Hapoel Jerusalem says on its website. “We know it well in our city. We have set out to be a proud alternative, and do it differently, but completely.”

In the wake of Oct. 7, the club immediately began advocating for the release of the hostages, and encouraging its fans to demonstrate on their behalf.

“The fans are the ones who dictate the tone and decide what will be written on social media,” Hapoel fan Barak Ben Yaakov told Haaretz. “Everybody is for releasing hostages, but everybody has been very careful with their words. From the first day, Hapoel Jerusalem called for returning the hostages. It called on everybody to go out and protest.”

Ben Yaakov said the club deserves credit for its role amplifying Goldberg-Polin’s cause.

“Thanks to the work of the fan club and the club itself, everybody in the stands today knows who he is, thinks about him or sees him as a little brother or a big brother,” Ben Yaakov said. “It’s totally shocking and amazing. He’s really one of us.”

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