Hersh Polin-Goldberg: Holding Hope With National Pain

Late Saturday night, the world received dreaded news – six Jewish hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 had been executed by the terror organization shortly before the IDF reached them. Among the slain was American citizen, Hersh Polin-Goldberg, whose parents have become symbols of an indefatigable fight to rescue their beloved son held in terror tunnels under Gaza.

So many of us hoped and prayed for a miracle – that these precious souls would eventually come home. The tragic news ended that hope. But then on Sunday afternoon, I found a sliver of renewed hope: a baby boy on Sunday morning, in Hillside, New Jersey joined the covenant of the Jewish people and at his bris, was given the name Shaul Hersh.

Fifteen years ago, my husband and I too had a baby boy who entered the world just as Jewish hostages were being taken at a Chabad house in Mumbai, India. These terrorists’ radical Islamist ideology fueled the same Jew hatred as the Hamas savages. Incidentally, Hersh had a plane ticket that he was supposed to use to visit India this past January – a trip that would sadly never take place in a location where the Chabad house was stained with tears.

Tragically, Rivki and Gavriel Holzberg too were slaughtered for the crime of being Jews. Two days after my son was born, the hostage situation ended with only the Holzberg’s son and his nanny escaping. As my husband came to visit me in the hospital and burst the cocoon of tranquility my newborn son and I were suspended in (flooded with postpartum hormones) I was overcome with grief. I was devastated to bring this pure new soul – my first son – into a world that could be so cruel. But my husband had a suggestion, which felt like a balm on a raw wound: what if we added Gavriel to our son’s name, so that another Jewish man could carry on the legacy of Rabbi Holzberg, who would be remembered frequently in our family? And so we did. And yes he has.

After seeing the bris video yesterday, my husband and I went to a wedding of close family friends. I had not yet cried over the news of the hostages, as there are times in these last eleven months when I feel too numb for tears.

As the groom stood under the chuppah and his mother helped him put on his kittel (the white robe that is customarily worn under the wedding canopy, so the groom, like the bride, decked in white, symbolically begin their new life together with a clean slate) I began to weep. I wept for Rachel Polin-Goldberg who will never stand under the chuppah with her Hersh. I wept for the hope that one day I will merit to be able to do so with my son who is already the height of a groom and bears the name of yet another Jew senselessly slaughtered. I prayed for the new couple and their future together, as they will God willing build another generation of the Jewish people.

My tears at the chuppah gave way to joyous dancing soon after. As we surrounded the bride and her family in traditional Jewish circle dancing, in a room full of approximately 500 guests, many of them family, I remembered that we were at a Schindler wedding. The great grandparents of the bride were Schindler Jews (Jews who had been saved in the Holocaust by Oscar Schindler), who had three daughters. Those daughters had several children of their own. And now the generation of the bride – three generations later – there were so many great grandchildren – I couldn’t even count. The generations descended from these Schindler Jews do not just carry their Jewish identity by name, they are Jews who learn Torah, build their communities and delight in their heritage.

As an aside, Jon Polin, father of the slain Hersh, grew up in the synagogue of these Jews saved by Schindler and still carries fond memories of them today. One of their grandsons went on to become the rabbi of the Goldberg-Polins when they lived in Richmond, Virginia.

As Jews, we have no choice but to hold national pain at our celebrations and rebuild from the ashes, every time we are destroyed. May the families of the hostages, the slain citizens, and brave soldiers, who made the ultimate sacrifice protecting the Jewish state, find comfort and eventually joy to hold with their pain. And may we merit to see the final redemption, speedily in our days.

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Allison Josephs

Allison Josephs is the founder and executive director of Jew in the City has been involved in the field of Jewish Outreach for over twenty years and is the Partner in Torah mentor to actress Mayim Bialik. She was named one of NJOP’s Top Ten Jewish Influencers and one of the Jewish Week’s 36 under 36. Allison has been quoted or written about in numerous publications, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, People Magazine, NYPost, Daily News, TMZ, The Daily Beast, and Hollywood Reporter. She has appeared on numerous television and radio networks including CBS, ABC, Fox5, TLC, Associate Press TV, and NPR; her articles have appeared in publications including The Washington Post, JTA, Jewish Week, Jerusalem Post, The Forward, and Kveller. Pearson Education, the largest textbook company in the world, produced a video segment on Allison’s life for the Judaism chapter of their textbook. She is a sought-after international lecturer whose corporate clients include Con-Edison and NYU Langone and hosts a weekly podcast on the Nachum Segal Network. She received her Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University in Philosophy and lives with her husband and four children minutes from the George Washington Bridge.