‘We all failed you’: Heartbreak at funeral for Hersh Goldberg-Polin in Jerusalem
Thousands attend burial of dual US-Israeli citizen who became a symbol in the battle for the hostages, and was executed by his Hamas captors along with five others
Thousands of mourners lined the streets of Jerusalem on Monday to bid a final farewell to slain American-Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, one of the best-known faces among those seized by Hamas-led terrorists on October 7.
Goldberg-Polin’s body, along with those of fellow hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino, were recovered by Israeli troops on Sunday, hours after they were shot dead by their captors. News of their death triggered an outpouring of grief and rage among Israelis already traumatized by the most devastating attack in the country’s history.
“Hersh, for all of these months, I have been in such torment worrying about you every millisecond of every day,” said his mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin. “It was such a specific type of misery that I have never experienced before. I tried hard to suppress the missing-you part. Because that, I was convinced, would break me.”
Despite the agony, said Goldberg-Polin, standing alongside her husband Jon Polin and the couple’s two daughters, the family was convinced Hersh would come home alive, even as the months dragged on.
Hersh, 23, who immigrated to Israel from California at the age of 7, was at the Nova music festival in southern Israel on October 7, celebrating his birthday, when the terrorists launched their onslaught, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.
Addressing the crowd at the funeral, President Isaac Herzog apologized to the murdered hostages for the state’s failure to bring them home alive.
“Beloved Hersh, with a torn and broken heart, I stand here today as the president of the State of Israel, bidding you farewell and asking for your forgiveness, from you, and from Carmel, from Eden, from Almog, from Alex, and Ori, and from all your loved ones,” he said.
“I apologize on behalf of the State of Israel, that we failed to protect you in the terrible disaster of October 7, that we failed to bring you home safely,” the president added, recalling how on the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av he and the Goldberg-Polins “prayed at the President’s Residence for your return, together with all the hostages. And now, our heart, already broken, is shattered into pieces.”
According to reports, Hersh, Gat, and Yerushalmi were on a list of “humanitarian hostages” whose release Israel was expecting in the first phase of a potential deal with Hamas.
Alongside the Goldberg-Polins at the funeral were other family members of hostages and victims of the massacre, among them Shira and Moshe Shapira, whose son Aner, Hersh’s childhood friend, was killed on October 7.
“Now I no longer have to worry about you. I know you are no longer in danger. You fought to stay alive and now you are gone,” said Goldberg-Polin, painting a picture of Hersh in heaven alongside Shapira. “You are with beautiful Aner; he will show you around.”
Jon Polin remarked at the start of his eulogy that Aner’s parents had just completed the 11 months of reciting the mourner’s prayer, just as he and his wife were beginning their own mourning period.
Polin described Hersh’s early years, his innate curiosity and charisma, calling him his teacher. “We failed you, we all failed you. You would not have failed you,” he said. “Maybe your death is the stone, the fuel, that will bring home the 101 other hostages.”
Many among the thousands in the crowd hoisted Israeli flags. Many were also dressed in the colors of Goldberg-Polin’s favorite basketball team, Hapoel Jerusalem. Mourners laid wreaths at the foot of his casket and sang a prayer.
Goldberg-Polin offered her sympathies to the other five families burying their loved ones after they were executed by Hamas alongside her son.
The Goldberg-Polins became two of the most high-profile relatives of hostages on the international stage. During their desperate fight to free their son, they met with US President Joe Biden, Pope Francis, and others. They also addressed the United Nations and the Democratic National Convention, urging the release of all hostages.
Hersh lost part of his left arm to a grenade blast during the attack. In April, a Hamas-issued video, filmed under duress, showed him with his left hand missing, sparking new protests in Israel urging the government to do more to secure his and others’ freedom.
Israeli forensics experts say the six hostages were killed by close-range gunfire, on Thursday or Friday, shortly before Israeli troops reached the tunnel in southern Gaza where they were being held. Their deaths sparked mass protests in Israel, with many saying they could have been returned alive if a hostage release-ceasefire deal had been reached.
Carmel Gat laid to rest in Be’eri
Carmel Gat, another of the hostages murdered in captivity last week, was also laid to rest Monday, in Kibbutz Be’eri, where she was born and where she was taken captive on October 7 while visiting her parents.
The decision to close the funeral to the media was in deference to Gat, a private person, said her cousin Gil Dickmann, speaking to the press earlier in the day.
“Our fight for her was very public,” said Dickmann. “We had many discussions about whether she’d be angry at us for showing parts of her life, like her yoga, but we’ll never know whether she saw us or how she felt about this.”
He added, “Many people told us she just was sunlight that brightened the room or a rainbow, because of all the colors in her.”
