Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s funeral at Jerusalem’s Har Hamenuchot cemetery this Monday was packed. Crowds wearing red shirts, for HaPoel Jerusalem, Hersh’s beloved local team, flooded the road leading up to the space where mourners spoke about their loved one, waving flags and scarfs with messages from Bob Marley and against racism. There were secular and religious men and women, some waving yellow flags for the hostages, some holding or wrapped in Israeli flags. They sat on the rooftops of buildings and watched as Hersh’s parents, sisters and the country’s president speak. They walked with him on his final journey, this boy who loved to travel the world so much. They sang “El Maleh Rachamim,” a prayer of remembrance.
And of course, there at the center of it all was Rachel Goldberg-Polin. Every Jewish mother saw something in Rachel, so aptly named after one of our matriarchs, a mother with superhuman strength and loveliness and power to her voice, no matter how many times it broke when she spoke to world leaders and to us across the screen on Hersh’s social media page. Likewise, so many of us saw something in Hersh. I saw my brothers — sweet gentle men who loved to travel and question things. I saw my own little boys in his smile and curious eyes shining from the pictures, recalled the way I too orbit around my sons’ eyes like they’re the sun.
It was President Herzog who spoke first, both in Hebrew and English, apologizing to the beloved Hersh — along with Carmel, Ori, Almog, Alex and Eden, the other five hostages who were murdered by Hamas last week. He apologized for what happened on October 7, for failing to get him back, and spoke about how his light touched him and all of us from that first day in October we first learned about him. “There is no door in the world that your beloved family hasn’t opened for you,” he said, “no prayer, no cry for help. They walked to the end of the world to try to release him.”
“Now our broken heart is in smithereens,” he said.
“In his life and in his death, Hersh has touched all of humanity deeply. He has shaped our world and woven his essence of light and love into the story of the Jewish people and into our human story forever.” He then called on the international community, on behalf of the remaining hostages held in captivity, to “bring them home now.”
It was Jon Polin, Hersh’s father, who took the stage next. His button-up short-sleeved shirt was torn in the fashion of Jews in mourning, and he started by speaking about Hersh’s two Jerusalem high school classmates, Aner Shapira, his best friend, who’s death Hersh witnessed after the two saved so many from grenades thrown at the shelter they were hiding in, and Ben Zussman, who died in action during the ensuing Israel-Hamas War. They grew up together, studied together, and now, Jon said, their family would be joining the Zussman and Shapira families — and too many other families — in their grief. He thanked both of their parents, saying that they take comfort in the fact that “Hersh and Aner are reunited forever,” and that it is significant that they just stopped saying Kaddish for Aner and now say the Goldberg-Polins will be saying Kaddish for Hersh — saying that one year of mourning was not enough for these two amazing boys, so they get two.
Jon spoke about how Hersh “was my rav, my teacher, my companion,” challenging him to think beyond himself in every way. He moved his family to activism for the right of African migrants and other issues. He was always confident and self-assured, curious, inquisitive. Jon said that he was told that their last name, Polin, could mean “poel yeshuot,” a worker for salvation, someone who makes the world better, which is why they have rabbis and doctors in their family. “You were a true poel yeshuot,” he said of Hersh. “You always sought ways to make the world around you better.” He talked about how Hersh always tried to understand every point of view on every issue, from eating animals, to Israeli settlement policies and more.
Jon talked about how much the saying “may his memory be a revolution,” when referring to Hersh, resonated with him. “We failed you, we all failed you,” he said, adding that his work is now to make sure that his death was not in vain, that maybe his death is the fuel that could bring home the rest of the hostages.
“You would keep on pushing for a rethinking of this region. You would say — you have said — that we must take a chance on the path with potential to end the ongoing cycles of violence,” Polin said of his son. “You would ignore people’s public posturing and what people say at press conferences, and you would push every decision maker to truly look themselves in the mirror and to ask themselves selflessly every single day, ‘Will the decisions I made today lead to a better future for all of us?’ And you would tell any decision maker who cannot answer that question with an emphatic yes to step aside.”
He said it was so appropriate that at a New York vigil for Hersh, they sang the Arik Einstein song “Ani Ve’ata Neshane Et Ha’olam,” which means “You and I Will Change the World.”
“The 23 years we had with you were a blessing. We will now work to make your legacy a similar blessing. You were a really great guy. I love you,” he ended his speech.
Then Rachel took the stage, with the number of days since October 7 still written in tape on her white shirt, now torn. She made us feel every word she said.
She was there to say goodbye to her son, and started with an anecdote of how he once questioned why every person who died too young is always remembered as perfect. “It’s not that Hersh was perfect, but he was the perfect son for me,” she said, adding that she wanted to do “hakarat ha’tov,” to recognize the good, for the fact that Hersh was her son, saying she didn’t know what she did in a past life to deserve him. “I just want to say thank you. I wish it had been for longer.”
“You charmed everyone you ever talked to, old or young. You promoted justice and peace in a way a only a young pure, wide-eyed idealist, can. You never raised your voice to me in your life. You treated me respectfully always, even when you chose a different path,” she recalled.
“OK sweet boy, go now on your journey. I hope it’s as good as the trips you’ve dreamed about because finally, finally, finally, finally you are free,” she cried, adding that she will love him forever, and miss him forever. “I know you’re right here, I just have to feel you in a new way.”
She finished her speech by saying she only needs one last thing from her beloved firstborn: “I need you to help us stay strong, I need you help us survive,” echoing the words she tried so much to project to him at every moment for 320 days.
Rachel and Jon’s words broke me — but it was Hersh’s sisters, Leebie and Orly, whose words made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. Maybe that’s because I know that love of a sibling that they spoke of, the one that, they said, connected them through their bellies — their “beten,” the Hebrew word for stomach and also used for gut. Their pain was so raw and unbearable. These girls who had to bury their idol, their big brother.
Leebie was the one who spoke first. “Jerusalem is not the same without you,” she said to her big brother. “I’m not the same without you,” saying that words feel empty and meaningless, incapable of touching the enormous pain that broke her on that night between Saturday and Sunday when she found out about his death. “You were a child of light, of love,” she said, “a straight line that connects your legs, your heart, your mind.” She said now he can finally see “how many people love you, how many hearts you’ve touched, how many you’ve made laugh.” She talked about how, in her hardest moments, she felt him connected to her, imagining a string tying the siblings together — that string isn’t torn, she said, but stretched beyond the limits of earth and sky. There is no logic, no justice, she said; she will always be sorry for not having been able to say goodbye.
“It’s hard for me, and I am uncomfortable, but I want to tell you some things, Hersh, my big brother,” Orly then went up to says. “Since the knock on the door last night, if I don’t cry, I feel a giant painful hole in my heart… I never imagined in my worst nightmares that this is how it would end… I didn’t know that physically it could hit me so hard.”
She said she was blessed to have been his sister for 18 years. “I admired you,” she shared. “I am taking so much from you. You were a real person who loved others… I learned from you to fight for what is important to me.” But most importantly, she added, she learned from him how “to respect your mother and your father,” one of the Jewish commandments he was always “so good at.”
“I will admire you, I will love you and tell everyone about you, I will forever be your little sister even if you stay 23,” she shared.
Two of his “brothers” from the HaPoel club also spoke about him. Hersh, to them, means light, peace, hope, friendship and so much more. They spoke of how he always volunteered with the club to help those in need, how he always made people laugh, was always dependable.
Hersh shines above us too now, maybe too bright for this world, or maybe just bright enough — undeserving, like so many who died in this conflict, of that premature ending. May his memory be a revolution.
You can watch the full service here:
