From the Liveblog of
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Parents of hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin ‘surprised and overwhelmed’ by supportive reception at DNC
The parents of American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin say they were “surprised and overwhelmed” by the extraordinarily positive reception they received when they addressed the Democratic National Convention in Chicago yesterday.
Tens of thousands of people broke into chants of “Bring them home,” got to their feet and stayed standing throughout the speech.
“I was so surprised and overwhelmed,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin tells Channel 12 News. “We had been told for days leading up to this, that it was going to be a negative reception, that it’s going to be a negative type environment, so we were steeling ourselves for almost not a fight but this adversarial reception.”
“And to have the complete opposite happen, it was so overwhelming for me that I got emotional,” she says.
This photo is heartbreaking.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin crying for her son Hersh, who has been a hostage for 320 days with 108 others. pic.twitter.com/QtSsyLvZrW
— Yaakov Langer (@jacklanger) August 22, 2024
The hostage’s father, Jon Polin, confirms that they were invited to address the convention last week, but were not sure it would happen until the last minute as they were asked to keep quiet about the speaking slot.
There had been speculation that the DNC was weighing whether or not to give a hostage family the stage amid pressure from pro-Palestinian activists to also be platformed.
Their son is among 105 hostages abducted by Hamas on October 7 who remain in captivity in Gaza, including the bodies of 34 confirmed dead by the IDF.
