Rachel Goldberg-Polin on Losing a Son in Gaza

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1:44Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Ever since October 7th, 2023, we've tried very hard on this show to reflect the politics, the cruelties, and the complexities of the endless Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And our guests have included a range of prominent Palestinians, Israelis, and Americans. They've been witnesses, politicians, journalists, and scholars. Our guest today, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, was born in Chicago. She immigrated to Israel with her young family in 2008 and created a fulfilling life of observance, community, and above all, tight-knit family. Prominence was the last thing on her mind.

2:28I am the Jewish Jane Doe, she'll tell you. But when her eldest child, her son Hirsch, was taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th, Rachel Goldberg-Polland became the emblematic parent, the most effective spokesman of all the many Israeli relatives whose sons or daughters, parents or grandparents, disappeared into the tunnels of the Gaza Strip. Hirsch, who was 23, had been at the Nova Music Festival, and in the initial assault, most of his left arm was blown off by a Hamas grenade. Throughout Hersh's long captivity, Rachel argued to anyone who would listen that Israel's priority should be to bring the hostages home, first and foremost.

3:11She talked to politicians throughout Israel. She talked to Pope Francis. She addressed the Democratic National Convention, insisting that the killing of all innocents, Israeli and Palestinian, was a moral outrage and had to stop. But after nearly 11 months in captivity, after Rachel went to the gates of Gaza to shout her son's name in both agony and prayer, Hirsch was executed. Thousands in Jerusalem attended his funeral. And then Rachel Goldberg-Polin continued advocating on behalf of all the other hostages until the rest were finally freed. She recently published a book called When We See You Again, a book of unrelenting, unapologetic pain.

3:56Pain that is both particular, the pain that will be with one person to the end of her life, and at the same time, representative of the pain felt by so many parents forced to endure loss in Israel and Palestine.

4:13Rachel, welcome here. And I guess I should start by asking how you and your family are. I say all the time that that's a really innocuous, human, normal, standard, civil question. And I have this very visceral, tactile, inappropriate response, which is, I always think, how do you not see this dagger sticking out of my chest? How could someone possibly ask how we are? How can they miss it? Right. And yet I realize that people don't see it. And I understand that a lot of what I'm trying to do in general is explain and describe that knife that's sticking out of my heart. So I don't know how to answer because I feel like either I have to tell the truth, which I don't think people want to hear, or I'm put in a position to lie and say, oh, you know, we're breathing, we're trying.

5:19We're bearing up. We're holding up. Every day, you know, we're making our way, we're hopeful. Are you any of those things? Um, I'm breathing and I'm trying, but I also am very much suffering. And yet you've taken it on yourself, and I want to ask why, to write this book, a remarkable book, to be a public figure for a very long time now, which must seem like an eternity. On the one hand, it began because you thought it might save Hirsch, your son. And it's gone on longer. Tell me about this decision to be public, to write a book, to be on television, to come into a studio like this and talk through the worst possible thing.

6:20Well, I think it went through several permutations because the initial advocacy was simply what any parent alive would do for their child. And so from October 7th, we had 251 families who were all doing that for their loved ones. There wasn't a plan and there wasn't a strategy. It was just reflexive. And our goal from that very beginning was to get all of the hostages home. and we were really experiencing a slow motion terror attack on ourselves, on our psyche, on our mentally, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, religiously, and physically. We were, and all of the hostages were suffering that as well and their families.

7:26and we personally got the news that Hirsch and the five young people with whom he was being held had been executed. We received that news on day 330 of this arduous journey upon which we find ourselves. Now, during those 330 days, in order to try to free Hirsch alive and all of these other people, we were trying desperately to humanize him. And so talking about him and showing pictures of him and talking directly to him publicly was trying to get people to care, to care enough to galvanize them to actually take action and do something. And when Hirsch was murdered and our quest to get him home alive was over, we still had over 100 hostages who were being held.

8:34And after the traditional Jewish mourning period, John and I said, well, we have still over 100 people who are there, and we have work to do until more than 500 days later when the final hostage came home on day 843. Then there was this scaffolding, the emotional, loving scaffolding that so many millions of people around the world had given to all of us hostage families continued and is still needed, is. You know, when people make the mistake and say, you went through so much, we think, no, no, we're still here. We live here in the after, in a place where we will always be. One of the most extraordinary things about the book is that, is that the portrait that you provide of her, is so vivid and, you'll forgive me, alive in you and on the page.

9:44So I'd like to just maybe begin right there. You and your husband are from Chicago. You made Aliyah 18 years ago. So Hirsch was born. Hirsch was born in Berkeley, California in the year 2000 in October, October 3rd, 2000. and we lived in Berkeley until he was almost four and we moved to Richmond, Virginia. And he already had a sister at that point. Lebe had been born in 2003. And in Richmond, we had another baby girl in 2005. And in the summer of 2008, when Hirsch was going to be going into second grade, was when we moved to Israel. Why did you do that? So the truth is that it was very classic kind of Zionistic reasons that John, my husband, grew up feeling like, wow, the Jewish people never really had an opportunity to live as a Jewish independent nation.

10:58and that exists now. How are we not getting on this ride? And I realized that we were living a very comfortable, easy, beautiful life in Richmond, Virginia. We had this lovely house and this nice community. And I realized we might accidentally wake up and be 85 years old eating grapefruit, reading the newspaper. and say, wow, we never even tried. Now, as I hardly need to tell you, because you pay attention to what's happening all over the world, not just in Israel, the word Zionism, the concept Zionism is a very freighted word. Right. What does it mean to you? And how do you grapple with the debate about it now?

11:51Well, it's interesting because even when I was saying it, I thought, I think if I'm not mistaken, that's not a word you're allowed to say anymore. And I think that that happens to me all the time. I think about how when I was in university and I was so proud to call myself a feminist, and I still am. And yet I think that's a word you're not supposed to use anymore. I don't know why. I know the word Zionist, which we, growing up, just thought that it meant we believe in the idea that the Jewish people can have a homeland. And I hope people will forgive me for being antiquated and not up with the latest non-culture.

12:38But you moved to Jerusalem, and was it what you expected or hoped for, this new life with young children? Hirsch is the eldest. What was life like? It was complicated in the best way, meaning it was filled with meaning. In a way that life in Virginia was not. Well, it was filled with meaning in Richmond for me because I was teaching adult Jewish education, and I felt a lot of purpose in what I was doing. And the kids were in very good schools that were Jewish day schools that were really had their hearts in the right place. I felt that it was also a very meaningful experience. You paint a picture of Hirsch that does not romanticize, you know, down to the smell of his armpits, which is repeated more than once.

13:40And of a very deeply sweet, intelligent being who's becoming himself. That he's doing what a lot of kids all over the world who were able to do it, particularly in Israel, where they go on these kind of vanderyars. and he did a warm-up trip for, I think, nine weeks or so in Europe. And that's the period where the book takes place. A scene that I'll never forget is October 6th. It's Shabbat. It's Friday evening. Tell me about that. The family is all together. So we're one of those families that goes to synagogue both Friday night and Saturday morning. a couple of years before October 7th, Hirsch had come to John and me and said, listen, I'm not going to be keeping Shabbat the way that our family keeps Shabbat.

14:36We are Sabbath observant Jews, which means that from sundown on Friday night until an hour after sundown Saturday night, we abstain from certain things such as using electronics, watching TV, using a phone. riding in a car, all these things that are very much part of our week, we don't do that for those 25 hours. This happens a lot with us, with our children, right? Something that's very meaningful and valuable to us. We are trying desperately to get our children to appreciate it the way we do, and it just doesn't happen. Or someone says, for now. And that was what Hirsch was saying to us, for now, I'm not going to be doing this.

15:23Like the Amish on their room springo. Whatever it is, you know, this is not a unique to us experience. And then he said in the next breath, but I will always be respectful. And so what it did look like is he continued to come with us to synagogue both Friday nights and Saturday morning. He continued to have Shabbat dinner with us. And I asked him, actually, in the summer of 2023, why are you still coming to synagogue with us? Because, you know, it's not easy, especially Shabbat morning. And I asked him, and he said, I don't want Dada to sit alone. Because in our synagogue, because it's an Orthodox synagogue, the men and women actually sit separately.

16:06So if Hirsch didn't go, John would be by himself. Hirsch had said he was coming with us to synagogue. He was coming with us to Shabbat dinner after synagogue. We were walking to friends next to our synagogue to eat dinner. He said, but I'm bringing my camping backpack because Aner, his best friend, and I are going to go do something fun afterwards. And I said, great, because I was happy that he was coming with us. You take what you get. Exactly. I was happy he was coming with us. We went to Shabbat dinner after synagogue, and at 11 o 'clock, from behind, he came and he kissed me right here, and he kissed John.

16:48And he turned around in the doorway, and very casually, he glanced at me and said, love you, see you tomorrow. And that was a thousand days ago. The following morning, John had already said goodbye and left for shul, left for synagogue. I was still having a cup of tea when suddenly sirens started to wail in Jerusalem. I mean, what's tragic now is it doesn't, I'm completely non-pulsed and it makes absolutely, it doesn't elicit any sort of anxiety whatsoever. But then it was so unusual. And I went running to my girls' rooms to wake them. And I said, we have to get in our safe room. And the protocol is you wait 10 minutes.

17:33If you don't hear anything suspicious, you can come out. Now, the problem is, it was Shabbat morning. I didn't have my phone with me. It was in the kitchen in a drawer off. So it was a problem because I'm standing in our sealed room, and I don't know why. So after 10 minutes, I went out, and I said to the girls, this is a life-or-death situation somewhere. The bombs are falling, and I know that Hirsch and Anir are sleeping outside somewhere. And I turned on my phone at 8.23. And 12 minutes before that, two simultaneous back-to-back messages had come into the group that John Hirsch and I have together.

18:14And the first message said, I love you. And the second message immediately at, both were at 8.11, said, I'm sorry. and my throat fell out of my body onto the floor and I tried to call him and it rang and rang. I wrote, are you okay? Tell me you're okay. I'm leaving my phone on. Let me know you're okay. And those messages obviously have never been read. And I handed my phone to my daughter who at the time was 20. And I said, find him. and she started to look through social media that she had to try to figure out where is Hirsch, and she right away said, oh my gosh, I bet you they're here, and she shows me a picture of people at the Nova Music Festival screaming and running.

19:13The Nova Music Festival took place quite close to Gaza, near the kibbutzim that are around it, and there were many thousands of people. Correct. And the attack came at about 6.30 in the morning. Right. And you got more information eventually about what had happened horrifically through Anderson Cooper of CNN. Yes. Anderson had gone down to the Nova site to do a documentary for CNN. And IDF soldiers had found a camera. And he watched the footage of some young men and boys being dragged from a bomb shelter onto a pickup truck. And you hear Anderson say, Jesus Christ, he has no hand. And that's Hirsch, who gets onto the truck.

20:07And Anderson suddenly realizes, as he's speaking to us live, holy cow, I have footage of their son being kidnapped. And he didn't want to frighten us, and he didn't want to use this. Did you watch that footage? I did once. We could see that Hirsch's left dominant forearm had been blown off. He had managed to make sort of a makeshift tourniquet. but you could very vividly see this jagged bone sticking out from below the tourniquet, and he stays sitting. The other hostages who were taken were sort of, they were wounded so badly, they were lying down. You should say what they had survived. Prior to that, they had been trapped in a bomb shelter, and grenades were being tossed in one after the other, and his friend was tossing them back out until not.

21:08The room was actually smaller than this room that you and I are sitting in. The room was five feet by eight feet and there were 28 young crunchy granola music lovers shoved in there. And yes, Hamas was tossing in hand grenades which Anir Shapira was so heroically throwing out And I don't use that word in a small way. Anir Shapira was absolutely a hero. And anyone who is alive today from that bomb shelter is alive for one reason and one word, and that is Anir. And then Anir was killed. And Hamas came to the doorway and was just spraying in machine gun fire. And so 18 of those young people were killed instantly.

21:58And there were a few very lucky ones. I call them lucky because they were trapped under the dead bodies. And so they could pretend to be dead because there were so much innards and blood and gore all over them that they appeared dead. Have you ever met any of those kids who survived? Yes. Yes. and they right away there were three of them who we spoke to in the coming days who were the eyewitnesses telling us that these young men, these four young men could not hide. Hirsch was one of them. They were all injured and they were taken out of the bomb shelter and they were put on this pickup truck and they saw the pickup truck driving away in the direction of Gaza.

22:46And so we knew Hirsch was taken alive, so we immediately were told it will help him if you start talking about the fact that you know he's alive. And yet, while I know you are not primarily or even secondarily a political person, there were among the parents of the hostages people who were furious with the government, who would shout at cars taking government people to and from various sites around the country. I don't need to get into the details. You know it better than I do. you decided not to be among those and you carried yourself in a very different way why is that i think everyone was doing exactly what felt natural and what felt would be helpful for them and for their loved one and what i really appreciated during that time is that you had 251 families that were in the most excruciating agonizing pain everyone was doing different things and I never felt any judgment and I never felt any judgment toward anyone else.

24:03I think maybe I was so traumatized that I felt like speaking would be a better path than screaming. Was anybody particularly embracing? Most people were embracing. In a genuine way. Well, that is the bigger question. Most people were very embracing, but, you know, in this world, we are not what we say, and we're not what we think, and we're not even what we believe. Tell me what you mean. We are what we do. So people can say whatever they want and think whatever they want and believe whatever they want, but if they don't do anything, that is what defines people. I have to say, Rachel, behind what you're saying seems to be a fair measure of anger that you don't want to betray.

25:01It's just the reality. It's not even that. I really, it's funny because people are desperate for us to be angry, fury, to feel things that I think that they assume they would feel if they were in the position that we were in and that we are in. But the truth is, I'm open to feeling anything. Like, the chips have flown out the window, right? That ship has sailed. I put Hirsch in the ground on September 2nd, 2024. So all of this after that I'm in is a completely different universe. And I am completely open to whatever feelings come my way.

26:03I'm speaking today with Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Her book is called When We See You Again and will continue in just a moment. This is the New Yorker Radio Hour.

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28:46This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick, and I've been speaking today with Rachel Goldberg-Polyn. In a book called When We See You Again, she recounts the pain of losing her son, Hirsch Goldberg-Polyn, who was abducted by Hamas from Israel on October 7th and later executed. It's her first book, and it's extraordinary and deeply moving. I'll continue my conversation now with Rachel Goldberg, Poland. I will never forget, among other things, sitting at home watching the Democratic Party nominating convention, which nominated Kamala Harris to run for president after the drama of Joe Biden's stepping away, stepping down.

29:31And you got up to speak with John. And it was, first of all, I wonder if you anticipated one kind of reaction or another. Definitely. We actually had been told we were kind of embargoed. We were hiding for the couple of days before. Why? Because we had been told that there were threats and that people hated us and that we were a symbol of something that people were filled with fury over and that we were not going to be— Because of the accumulating death toll in Gaza. Right. And that we were not going to be received well and which was— As somebody who is very familiar with Americanness, how did you feel about that?

30:18Well, I believed it, and yet I was confused because we were so much saying from day one, you know, this adversarial paradigm of choosing a team and that's it. It's all or nothing is so demeaning to us as human beings. We were bestowed with all of this insight and intellect and wisdom and that we are capable of holding multiple truths. And so we were saying from the get-go, we are extremely concerned and worried for the innocent civilians in Gaza and, not but, and we are extremely worried and concerned for the innocent civilians in Gaza who were dragged there on October 7th. and I know one very well, he has my DNA.

31:15I will tell you, Rachel, I mean, even as it's a minuscule thing compared to you, but even as somebody who wrote as much, to try to hold more than one thought in one's head at the same time, it doesn't invite admiration all the time. Right, and so that was, so we just kept thinking, we're all much bigger than this. We can do, like, come on. I mean, I just thought to listen to someone who was telling me my son is being tortured and dying in these tunnels, and at the same time, I feel for innocents of all kinds who are dying by the dozens every single day was an extraordinary gesture that I don't know that everybody picked up on.

32:03What did you sense in the room? Well, so that was what was interesting. So to us, it just seemed so obvious. Innocent is innocent, you know, and there's no competition of whose tears are the saltiest. You know, we're all suffering. When we have these conflicts and we don't use any sort of profound creativity, all we do is cause more suffering to everybody. And it seemed so obvious to us, but we were steeled walking out onto that stage with 25 ,000 people in the arena that evening at the DNC. They were so sure that the response was going to be so viscerally horrible that they didn't want us out until the last possible minute.