Bereaved mothers learned of sons’ heroism from freed captive: ‘An indescribable gift’
After his release, Or Levy told Shira Shapiro how Aner taught him to fend off grenades, described to Rachel Goldberg-Polin how Hersh helped him find strength to survive
When Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Shira Shapiro met released hostage Or Levy last month, he told them how each of their murdered sons had saved him in body and spirit.
In an interview broadcast on Channel 12 Friday, Shapiro recounted that when she saw Levy, she said the Shehecheyanu blessing, the Jewish prayer of gratitude.
“I’ve never seen a manifest miracle with my eyes like when I saw him,” she said. “And he told us things that really uplifted us.”
During the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, Shira’s son Aner Shapiro fended off seven grenades that terrorists threw into the concrete shelter where he, best friend Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Rachel’s son, and many others had fled from the massacre at the Re’im-area Nova rave. Among those hiding were Levy and his wife, Eynav.
The eighth grenade killed Shapiro, and further grenades killed others inside, including Eynav. Or Levy and Hersh Goldberg-Polin were then snatched to Gaza. Hersh, whose left arm was blown off in the attack, spent some time with Levy in captivity, but the two were later separated. He was eventually murdered in captivity in August, along with five other hostages.
Shira Shapiro said Levy told her that before Aner died, he showed Levy how to toss back grenades — “eyes on the ground and don’t miss anything” — and instructed him to keep doing so “if I’m hit or if I miss something.”
“He told us: ‘I was a desk soldier, I’d never seen a grenade, and I just tossed a grenade [out], because Aner not only saved me when he did it, but also gave me the power to do it,'” said Shapiro.
Levy returned in February as part of the ceasefire deal with Hamas. His three-year-old son was raised by relatives while he was held captive.
Upon his return to Israel, Levy was distraught to learn that Hersh did not make it back. Shapiro told Channel 12 that as soon as Levy was released, he asked to meet Hersh and Aner’s families.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin said, “Or gave us is an indescribable gift. He was the last person alive who hugged Hersh. And so when I was hugging Or, it was the last whisper of Hersh.”
She said Levy reported that in captivity, Hersh used to repeat a quote from psychiatrist and Holocaust Survivor Viktor Frankl: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how.’
“Hersh kept saying that to each of them, and they were trying to figure out, okay, what is my ‘why’… for Or, it was his son.”
According to Goldberg-Polin, it was Hersh who told Or Levy and others with them in captivity who Aner was.
“He said they realized that they had been in the shelter together and they had been in the [Hamas] pickup truck together, and Or was saying to Hersh, ‘Who was that hero? Who was that amazing soldier?’ And Hersh said, ‘That was Aner Shapiro, that was who I was there with.’
“And so it was this really incredible moment,” she added. “They all had been talking about this man, this young man, for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks, and they finally got a name.”
The two mothers were speaking alongside Sarit Zussman, mother of Sgt. First Class (res.) Ben Zussman, who was killed fighting in Gaza in December 2023.
The interview was filmed over the past week, partially in Jerusalem’s Himmelfarb High School, where Aner, Hersh and Ben — respectively 22, 23 and 22 when they were killed — had been classmates.
The century-old, liberal religious school for boys has lost at least 10 alumni since the Gaza war broke out.
Speaking to Channel 12, the bereaved mothers said they hadn’t been to the school since their last parent-teacher conference years ago. Walking through the halls, they saw their sons’ portraits hanging at a memorial for fallen alumni.
“It’s depressing,” said Zussman. “They should be standing next to us.”
At her son’s funeral, Zussman had said Israel’s leaders had to make themselves worthy of the country.
“If our soldiers were able to put themselves aside and focus on the nation, it’s incumbent on our leaders to do so as well,” she said. “Leaders who don’t get that — leaders who walk around with arrogance — should leave their positions to those who know what to do.”
Speaking in the Friday interview, she said: “I expect our leadership to be worthy of the Israelli spirit, of this wonderful nation and of what has happened here since October 7… We’re not there yet.”
She pushed back when asked if she felt her son had died in vain.
“I resent that question,” said Zussman. “We’re still in the middle of this war… the fact that Ben [was killed] doesn’t change that fact. He didn’t go in vain, he went out to protect the nation of Israel and our beautiful Land of Israel.”
October 7 “was bad, period. Now, the task is to mend,” she said. Referring to truce-hostage negotiations, she continued: “Is it a bad deal? What happened [on Oct. 7] was very bad, and now, bringing back our brothers and sisters is good.
“There is one enemy and one bad thing that happened,” she said. “Aner tried to mend it with his hands, Hersh tried to mend it with his words and a firm stance, and Ben left home to try and mend this thing. And that’s what we all need to do.”
Goldberg-Polin said she’s “not even sure that anyone who’s born and lives dies in vain, even if they live for one day.”
“I remember at Hersh’s bar mitzvah, saying to him: ‘The most important thing I wish for you is a life of meaning,'” said Goldberg-Polin.
“What I realize is that Hersh has a life of meaning, and Aner and Ben have lives of meaning, because what we are doing now is infusing so much more meaning, because of them having lived,” she said.
She recalled that when she had first met Aner, she mispronounced his name as the similar-sounding “Honor.”
“And I still think of that,” she said. “To me, he is the embodiment of honor.”
He was “this little short boy with blond, blond hair and gorgeous eyes, and when Hersh introduced me to him, [Aner] spoke to me in English, because he said: ‘I know it’s hard for you in Hebrew,'” she said. “I knew this was a special boy.”
“All three of our boys were our oldest children, and so they’re the ones who changed us from being people into being mothers,” she said.
Shapiro added: “They changed us twice — from being a mother to being a bereaved mother.”
The women criticized recent instances of mistreatment of bereaved and hostages’ families, after earlier this month the Knesset Guard violently pushed away families from attending a parliamentary debate on a state probe into the Hamas onslaught.
Shapiro said that as a state employee, she would not comment on the matter, but she read a passage by Aner: “Don’t let the hate-mongers blur what is clear. There are differences and difficult disagreements, but nothing that justifies ‘burning’ entire communities… Don’t let the haters control our consciousness.”
“Think about it,” she said.
Zussman said, “bringing back our brothers and sisters is not a subject politics can latch on to. It’s in our Jewish values, in our humanistic values. It’s the most basic thing there is here.”
Goldberg-Polin agreed: “It’s so obviously not a political issue, When someone makes it a political issue, then you know… this is a tactic used to divide us.”
Goldberg-Polin has been a vocal supporter of a negotiated settlement with Hamas to release the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and an end to the war in Gaza — red lines for the government’s right-wing flank.
Speaking to Channel 12, she assailed efforts to silence the hostages’ families. “Something that I think has happened, that I saw myself happening, is I felt that I was being asked, while I’m being stabbed, not to scream — because my screams make people uncomfortable,” she said. “I asked someone in a position of power at some point, ‘When am I going to be allowed to scream while I’m being raped?’
“As a human response, sometimes, all of us, when you witness something horrible we [cover our eyes] or [cover our ears]. We don’t want to hear it. It’s too painful. And I’m wondering if some of that behavior [against victims’ families] is their response to witnessing such visceral, real agony, misery, and angst.”
The Times of Israel Community.