{"id":404753,"date":"2026-04-22T07:39:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:39:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/404753\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T07:39:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T07:39:12","slug":"her-kidnapped-son-was-killed-in-a-gaza-tunnel-a-new-memoir-gives-a-searing-account-o","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/404753\/","title":{"rendered":"Her kidnapped son was killed in a Gaza tunnel. A new memoir gives a searing account o"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Hersh Goldberg-Polin was in the tunnels in Gaza, fellow hostages say he often quoted a line from Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl: \u201cThose who have a \u2018why\u2019 to live can bear with almost any \u2018how.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d4\u05d9\u05e8\u05e9<\/a>\"\u05d4\u05d9\u05e8\u05e9<\/p>\n

Hersh Goldberg-Polin <\/p>\n

(Photo: Courtesy of the family)<\/p>\n

The quest for his why has fallen to his family, who led a high-profile campaign for his release. His mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, has a new book released Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen We See You Again\u201d has no narrative arc, no tidy uplifting message, no score settling with the Hamas terrorists who killed her son or the Israeli leaders who many blamed for his death \u2014 only a searing account of her grief.<\/p>\n

She hasn\u2019t yet decided whether the book is an exceptionally painful love story, or a love-filled pain story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m still trying to figure out with clarity what is my why, but it\u2019s clear to me that my why is not done,\u201d Goldberg-Polin said, a photo of a smiling Hersh behind her. \u201cI just really wanted to tell the truth. It\u2019s very ugly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hersh was among the 251 people abducted by Hamas in its Oct. 7, 2023, attack. His hand was blown off by a grenade before he was dragged into Gaza and eventually into the terrorist group\u2019s labyrinth of tunnels.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9\u05d5<\/a>\"\u05d4\u05d5\u05e8\u05d9\u05d5<\/p>\n

Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin call for the release of their son Hersh from Hamas captivity at the Democratic National Convention <\/p>\n

(Photo: AP)<\/p>\n

The war sparked by the attack led to the killing of over 70,000 Palestinians and the destruction of much of Gaza before a ceasefire deal in October led to the release of all the remaining hostages. Hersh had been killed, along with five other hostages, more than a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Rachel had campaigned tirelessly for her son\u2019s release, appearing in countless media interviews, meeting with then-president Joe Biden and addressing the Democratic National Convention<\/a>. She also joined mass protests in Israel accusing the government of failing to reach a deal sooner.<\/p>\n

Her son was among the best-known hostages. Posters and graffiti with his name and face still appear across the country, often bearing the line popularized by Frankl.<\/p>\n

In her memoir, Rachel takes care not to mythologize him. She notes that he picked his scabs as a kid and was bad at doing dishes.<\/p>\n

\u201cHersh has become a symbol to many,\u201d Goldberg-Polin writes in the book. \u201cI don\u2019t know what to do with that. But it\u2019s OK. If people need Hersh to be something, he will be that. That is the essence of service, being what is needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05e6'\u05dc<\/a>\"\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05e6'\u05dc<\/p>\n

Rachel Goldberg-Polin <\/p>\n

(Photo: AP Photo\/Ohad Zwigenberg)<\/p>\n

Rachel grew up in Chicago and moved to Israel with her husband and three children when Hersh, the oldest, was 6. She tells stories from the \u201cbefore time\u201d: of how Hersh as a child would wow people with his encyclopedic knowledge of U.S. presidents, and how he loved Jerusalem\u2019s local soccer team and their sister team in Bremen, Germany.<\/p>\n

She only briefly touches on his capture and the details of his captivity, which have been widely reported. She writes about their desperate search for information in the chaotic and terrifying days after the attack, their long fight for his release and the news of Hersh\u2019s killing, along with five others, after 328 days.<\/p>\n

The book is mostly a \u201cvery raw, peeled, oozing, throbbing pain,\u201d Goldberg-Polin said. She describes \u201chundreds of sodden days dripping with anguish.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe book really started just as a way of taking this tremendous weight of suffering that was causing my soul to buckle,\u201d she said in an interview in Jerusalem.<\/p>\n

The writing came out in bursts, without a plan for a final project, just a question of \u201cHow do I survive the next 15 minutes?\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The book emerged in part from her frustration when people asked how she was. \u201cI think, \u2018Well, do you not see this dagger sticking out of my chest at my heart? How can you possibly be asking me that?\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cBut I realized they don\u2019t see it. And it\u2019s not because they\u2019re mean or insensitive. They simply don\u2019t see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

4 View gallery <\/p>\n

\"\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05e6'\u05dc<\/a>\"\u05e8\u05d9\u05d9\u05e6'\u05dc<\/p>\n

Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin with a picture of their son Hersh <\/p>\n

(Photo: Amit Shabi)<\/p>\n

\u201cSomeone who\u2019s born blind doesn\u2019t know what blue is, and it\u2019s very difficult to describe blue to someone who\u2019s blind. But I\u2019m desperate for people to see my blue, and I\u2019m yearning for people to feel my pain,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Then there were those who wanted to share their own stories of death and loss, even during her son\u2019s shiva, the traditional Jewish week of mourning after the funeral. It\u2019s an experience that she describes as overwhelming and eye-opening, revealing the \u201csurplus of suffering\u201d in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not trying to comfort me, they\u2019re saying: \u2018Let me stand next to you and we\u2019ll be in this together,\u2019\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

During the campaign to release the hostages, one of Rachel\u2019s mantras was \u201cHope is mandatory,\u201d even when it felt impossible. Now, wherever they go, people ask her and her husband for a bit of their creased and crumpled hope.<\/p>\n

She has no easy answers, as she tells Hersh in a letter addressed to her dead son near the end of the book.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will carry your why,\u201d she writes. \u201cI\u2019ll do it, I\u2019ll carry your why around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Hersh Goldberg-Polin was in the tunnels in Gaza, fellow hostages say he often quoted a line from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404754,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-404753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}