Jewish communities remember Hersh Goldberg-Polin as a symbol of the hostages and as a boy who davened with his dad

Early on in the Israel-Hamas war, Rachel Goldberg-Polin started a daily ritual of wearing masking tape on her shirt. Each morning she wrote on it with a black marker the number of days since her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, had been kidnapped from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7. Sunday would have marked the 331st day.

But on Saturday, Goldberg-Polin, an Israeli-American dual citizen, was found executed alongside five other hostages — Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Ori Danino, 25, Alex Lubnov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40 and Almog Sarusi, 25 — according to the Israel Defense Forces. All of them had been recently killed by Hamas terrorists, just before IDF soldiers found them in the tunnels deep below Gazas Rafah. Throughout the nearly 11 months since Oct. 7, the 23-year-old’s parents, Rachel and her husband, Jon Polin, became some of the most prominent international figures advocating for the release of their son and all of the kidnapped Israelis — including meetings with Pope Francis and President Biden and an impassioned speech last month at the Democratic National Convention.

“I have gotten to know [Hersh’s] parents, Jon and Rachel. They have been courageous, wise, and steadfast, even as they have endured the unimaginable,” Biden said in a statement on Sunday. “They have been relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express… Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes. And we will keep working around the clock for a deal to secure the release of the remaining hostages.”

Jon and Rachel’s advocacy turned Hersh Goldberg-Polin into a symbol of the hostages, one that particularly resonated with American Jews. Now his death appears to have an equally large impact on Jewish communities, especially the ones the family has roots in — from Richmond, Va., and Atlanta to Jerusalem. Jewish leaders from those communities, many with personal connections to the Goldberg-Polins, spoke to eJewishPhilanthropy on Sunday, recalling memories of happier times and expressing inspiration at the couple’s persistent fight for their son, who was abducted from the Nova music festival after losing an arm in a grenade blast.

“They have a lot of close friends in the shul and people here are grieving tremendously,” said Rabbi Dovid Asher, who leads Keneseth Beth Israel in Richmond, the Modern Orthodox congregation that the Goldberg-Polins attended for five years before making aliyah in 2008. Asher came to the congregation a couple of years after Jon, Rachel and their three children, Hersh, Leebie and Orly moved to Israel. But he said that because so many of his congregants still have strong ties with the family, the loss feels personal.

Asher pointed to a video of the synagogue theater production that Hersh performed in as a child alongside his father on Purim. “It’s very touching,” he said. “I hope to bring the congregation together tomorrow night to help people process and grieve together. They have a lot of friends here that have been davening every day.”

??As Keneseth Beth Israel and the Richmond Jewish community reel from the news, Asher expressed appreciation for a condolence call on Sunday morning from Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin, who ordered that the state fly flags at half-staff in memory of Goldberg-Polin.

The loss was felt in Atlanta’s Jewish community, too, where for several years after moving to Israel the family of five made an annual trek to Ramah Darom, the camp and retreat center in Clayton, Ga., for a Passover retreat to reunite with their extended American family.

“Even when Hersh was young and other kids would be outside playing during davening, Hersh would be sitting next to Jon in their regular spot by the windows in our beit knesset,” Wally Levitt, CEO of Ramah Darom, told eJP. “During this years Passover retreat, we reserved Hersh’s seat with the hope that he would be back sitting in it next year,” Levitt said.

The Goldberg-Polin family also has close ties to several other U.S. Jewish communities, including Chicago, where Jon and Rachel met while attending the Modern Orthodox Ida Crown Jewish Academy high school, and Berkeley, Calif., where Goldberg-Polin was born in 2000. During their stint in the Bay Area, the family belonged to Congregation Beth Israel. Just last week, more than 100 people gathered on a Berkeley highway overpass to call for Goldberg-Polin’s release.

William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and Harriet Schleifer, chair of the organization, called Rachel and Jon “models of grace, composure and hope amid this terrible ordeal.”

“The story of Hersh – an Israeli American born in Berkeley, Calif. – has particularly captivated the American Jewish and wider American public. We hold in our hearts the memories,” Daroff and Schleifer said in a statement.

Nearly 2,000 people packed Manhattan’s Columbus Circle on Sunday evening for a vigil to memorialize the six murdered hostages and to call for the release of those still in captivity. On the sidelines of the vigil, as chants of Bring Them Home could be heard, Ronen and Orna Neutra, the parents of Omer, 22, another Israeli-American dual citizen who remains captive in Gaza, told eJP that they stand with the Goldberg-Polins “in this difficult time.” Like the Goldberg-Polins, the Neutras have mounted a determined effort — including speaking at the Republican National Convention in July — to get their son, a lone soldier from Long Island, released.

“Hersh survived almost 11 months in captivity and was murdered, supposedly before the [hostage] deal was going to come to fruition,” Ronen told eJP. He said that he spoke with the White House earlier in the day and “urged them to do everything they can to put pressure on all the partners in the region to reach a deal.”

The White House call, Ronen said, gave him hope that “a deal is possible,” but said that leaders need to “act as urgently as possible.”

“Knowing that some of the hostages are dying, this is imminent. This can happen to any of our family members,” Ronen said.

In a joint statement on Sunday, the Neutras along with the families of the other six Americans who remain in Hamas captivity said that they have “been bonded together” with Jon and Rachel over the past 11 months. The families said that the killing of Goldberg-Polin “is a cruel reminder that with each passing day, the chances of bringing anyone home alive are at grave risk. For the last 331 days, we warned that this could happen.” They called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to “close the deal with Hamas and bring the hostages home to their loved ones.”

“Sorrow knows no end. Hersh, Almog, Eden, Carmel, Alex, Ori,” Doron Almog, chairman of the Jewish Agency, wrote on X.

“The heart breaks at the thought that they could have been saved. Time has run out. We must save everyone.The moral responsibility is on us, on all of us. What a terrible tragedy. Our hearts are with the families, today and forever. Their fight for their loved ones will never be forgotten.”

The Goldberg-Polins contributed to Israeli society well before they became the faces of the hostage crisis. Jon was hailed as “very smart and very much an entrepreneur,” by Naama Ore, the CEO of SparkIL, a social lending venture backed by the Jewish Agency. After making aliyah, Jon was an early founder of the platform that provides interest-free loans to help small businesses in Israel and connects businesses around the world to Israeli entrepreneurs. “He brought in great ideas to build the platform of SparkIL when it was still on paper and I’m very thankful for all the work he did,” Ore told eJP.

“We at SparkIL have been in touch with Jon from the beginning of this horrible tragedy and we spoke about Hersh on every platform we had,” Ore said, noting that she has met with Jon and Rachel several times since Oct. 7.

“It’s hard to breathe,” she continued. “We will think with the family how they would best want us, at SparkIL, to remember and remind people about Hersh. This is a huge tragedy. I just can’t believe this is how it ended.”