The Mother Who Became the Face of Hostage Advocacy

Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s son, Hersh, was kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip on Oct. 7. His family has had no word of him since.

By Elizabeth Bernstein | Photographs by Avishag Shaar-Yashuv for The Wall Street Journal
Feb. 26, 2024
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Rachel Goldberg-Polin numbers her days. On Day Seven, she spoke to President Biden on a Zoom call. On Day 88, a college student asked her a question no one else had thought to ask: “What can we do to ease your pain?”

Day One was Oct. 7. That’s when her 23-year-old son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, an American-Israeli, was severely injured in the attack on the Tribe of Nova music festival in Israel, then kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip. “My son was stolen,” she says.

When Rachel, who is 54, woke up that morning, she was a teacher and a mom. But starting that day, she morphed into an advocate, strategist and face of an international effort to save the life of her son and the other remaining hostages.

The last texts from Hersh. Photo: Maya Levin for WSJ

She has met with dozens of world leaders and executives, spoken twice at the United Nations, given countless interviews and had an audience with the pope.

Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Each morning when she gets out of bed, Rachel writes the number of the day on a piece of masking tape, sticking it on her shirt over her heart. “Let there be good news today,” she says to herself.

Maya Alleruzzo/AP

Rachel has a personal prayer, which has also become her mantra—for Hersh, for herself, for her husband, Jon Polin, and for their two daughters, Leebie, 20, and Orly, 18: “I love you. Stay strong. Survive.”

When friends and family showed up at their house on Day One, after hearing that Hersh was missing, Rachel and Jon told them: This is not a shiva—the seven-day Jewish mourning period. We have work to do.

Rachel and Jon work 18 to 20 hours a day trying to save their son and the other hostages, talking to officials, giving interviews, speaking to anyone who will listen.

Maya Levin for WSJ

They try to meet every powerful person they can, to see if they can find someone who can influence the governments that are involved. “We don’t know what the stone is that needs to be unturned,” Rachel says.

Rachel has become active on Instagram, where the bring.hersh.home. page now has more than 90,000 followers. (She wasn’t on Instagram in what she calls “The Before,” prior to Oct. 7.)

She has filmed videos where she asks people to write their political leaders and talks about her concern and heartbreak over the innocent Gazan civilians who are also suffering terribly.

Maya Levin for WSJ

“I am doing exactly what any mother would do if this were their child,” Rachel says.

Goldberg-Polin family

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Produced by Leah Latella
Photo Editors:
Angela Owens and Pia Peterson Haggarty

READ MORE:
Hamas Took More Than 200 Hostages From Israel. Here’s What We Know.

Inside Israel’s Daring Hostage Rescue in Gaza: ‘Diamonds Are in Our Hands’

‘I’m Not a Diplomat…I’m a Mom.’ The American Parents Thrust Into the Israeli Hostage Crisis.

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