Rachel Goldberg Polin has become the international
voice heart and conscience of the hostage crisis in Israel her son Hersh 23 years old was abducted
by Hamas um 83 days ago taken into Gaza he is wounded the family Rachel and the whole family
um have immersed themselves tirelessly in the campaign to bring him and the rest of the Israeli
hostages back home Rachel thank you so much for talking to us today on welcome I just want
to tell you we're also interested in bringing all the hostages home not just all the Israeli
hostages y That's a good that's a good correction and thank you for that I see you uh right now
in our conversation you have uh the number 83 on your on your shirt I assume that updates daily
correct the you know it's like the most nauseating uh there's so many nauseating parts of my day but
I I come out of my bedroom and the first thing I do before I even put the sticker on me I go out to
my porch where I have a huge counter um we live on the fifth floor overlooking a huge uh industrial
area and I change the number on the sign outside and then I come inside and I'm still in my pajamas
and I put a number on um my pajamas just you know immediately and then once I get dressed I switch
that sticker to whatever I'm wearing because um I think it's important that every day we're
aware that that something's changing that the numbers are growing and the um the danger is
growing and especially in America it made and abroad it makes people very uncomfortable which
uh is good you should feel uncomfortable that there are human beings still being held hostage
and one of them obviously is your son and before we talk about all the things you've done in the
campaigning it would be good for us I think and our listeners to hear and have a sense of of Hersh
who he is what he's like just tell us about him a bit sure well I love talking about Hersh um
first of all her is my firstborn so um I said you know there's something very special uh the
person who changes you from being a person and being who you have been to mother always there's
like this uh connection that's um a very hard to describe connection so obviously you know I have
that connection um Hersh is a very curious smart uh respectful very very respectful and yet super
funny dry dark sense of humor uh sarcastic without being mean he doesn't go over to mean in fact he's
never mean like that's just not that's not his um Mo um John and I both said we've never and this
is pre- October 7th we've never heard her shout like it's just not who he is um he is obsessed
with soccer obsessed with music festivals he had just spent nine weeks this summer traveling by
himself to six different countries in Europe to go to music festivals by himself he loves meeting
people from all different places and all different backgrounds um wild about geography since he was
in kindergarten because he had this incredible uh Irish Catholic teacher who was obsessed with
geography and she made sure that all the kids learned everything and he had a photographic
memory so he he just became very obsessed with travel as a tiny you know as like a five-year-old
as a six-year-old so he for all his birthdays he would ask for maps or Globes or atlases he asked
for National Geographic um for a subscription so we got him they have a junior National Geographic
which we got him and then at the end of the year when it was expiring the subscription was expiring
he came to us with that little you know back in the olden days when they would send like a card
that said you need to re um you know resubscribe and he came to us and he said but this one is
beneath me I need the real National Geographic so you know he um you know he's just starting
his life and he was supposed to yesterday was his ticket to fly to um India to start the trip he's
been planning since first grade that was going to be anywhere from a year to two years we knew
that um and um we ended up going to the airport yesterday with the bag that we bought for him that
he was supposed to um be using for this big trip and 50 of his of our daughter's friends and some
family friends came and we did like this whole little ceremony and we handed out stickers to
people who were on his flight to India um and said when you get there please you know put up stickers
um and send us send us video of you know your adventures and uh people have already sent we have
um amazing videos that people have sent to us from different places that he was planning on being on
saying Hersh we're waiting for you Hersh come on um so that's Hersh is a you know I'm a mother so
obviously I I think all mothers think that their kids are wonderful but I always say you know it's
not that Hersh is perfect but he is the perfect son for me and you said I think that you um that
these days You're pretending to be a person that's very Point can you tell us more about that how
you besides being The Advocate and and talking and talking to crowds talking to you know important
people around the world what do your days look like what how does the family struggle through
this so um you know I open my eyes in the morning and I immediately know oh shoot I'm still in
the nightmare you know it's a nightmare it's a day-mare it's an all the time-mare um and I say
mod an the prayer that the traditional prayer that that many Jews say upon waking that actually says
like I'm grateful to you God for giving me back my soul you have so much faith in me and then I say
let today be the day and I get up and as I was describing and I get up and the first thing I do
is change the number on the porch and I put the number on my body and um you know I look at my
schedule we're surrounded by this outrageously talented team of people who came to us on October
7th and have not left in 83 days um and they plan how we walk through our day and as you mentioned
because I have to make a decision every day and so does John that we now have to pretend to be
human because we are you know my my heart and soul were torn out and stolen to Gaza on October
7th so I look a lot like a person kind of and I I still know how to kind of fake it and behave like
a person but I am in such existential angst and despair at all times that look of course I have
my moments where I have to say to the team um I'm going to my room now which is code for Rachel
has to go cry um and you know and I go and I do my thing and I wipe my face and then I come back to
go on because there is this Primal maternal innate need to save him and to save them and the problem
is if I'm on the floor in a fetal position in a puddle it can't really save him so I have to take
that and I have to put that somewhere else and I have to go forward and I have to do every single
thing possible to try to save him and I'm not you know people will say like how you know like wow
you're really doing so many things to try I'm not doing anything John and I just spoke about this
we're not doing anything that any other parent wouldn't do it's just that so few parents are put
in this position thank god um yeah but I I don't know if you are parents but I mean think of your
own parents your own parents would do this for you you know it's not this is not exceptional this is
not unique it's simply that there aren't very many people on planet Earth with the unfortunate task
or mission to save their child you you mentioned God there and you mentioned that your day begins
with the prayer and I think um some people I think would hear that and wonder how on Earth that is
possible even Beyond just getting through the day that you have retained Faith even when something
like this has happened um what what do you say to people who who are asking themselves that question
oh well it's actually interesting because I didn't even continue on what I do after you know putting
the number on and I have my cup of tea and then I go and I actually pray every day which I've been
doing for years and years this isn't like a since October 7th but you know I have this relationship
with this idea of God and it actually during this period is very important for me so every morning
um I then sit down with my prayer book you know with my sedor and I actually pray the morning uh
traditional morning prayers that that many people do um and listen a lot of times I'm I'm shouting
and my kids know my girls know and I'm very uh you know hand motion I'm very now this also predates
I have to say it predates October 7th but um you know now more than ever there's a lot of like
you know putting my hands up and and having a conversation in Anger is also a relationship with
God or having a conversation of what are you up to is also a conversation with god and a lot of you
know throughout the day actually before when this whole debacle was happening with when we couldn't
find the sound for this podcast to happen and I was in the other room saying tehilim I was saying
Psalms because I say Psalms throughout the day I find it to be very helpful and I'm not talking
about the oh my gosh you're so cool God Psalms which there's room for that but I'm doing the ones
where like King David was saying like how long are you going to make me suffer how long is this
despair going to go on and there's something very validating that other people have gone through
tremendous angst and despair and anguish and and Trauma um um and for me for whatever reason um I'm
not in that place where people say there can't be a God you know like this horrible I appreciate
that and I appreciate that as a response right um I'm not there yet and I actually very thankful
I'm not there and I hope I never get there because for me in a time where there's so little that
can bring me any moment of focus on not being terrified is helpful and when I'm praying it does
that even if it's an angry praying and sometimes before I start I'll even say I'm just telling you
right now this is not going to be good like you know sometimes I'm I'm going through it because I
like the ritual of it but I know it's not going to be good and we all have those moments in life in
different things that we do where you know you're going to go through I'm sure there are times where
you guys show up for work and you're like we're going to go through this you know podcast or this
news you know segment it's not going to be my best but I'm going to walk through it yeah you know
there 83 days I mean is is such a long period and there there are things that have happened since
October 7th first of all they Israeli hostages they came back home there has been another attempt
at a hostage deal that thus far has failed there has been a tragic shooting of hostages by the IDF
I I wonder where you find yourself uh when you when you're confronted by all of this news uh
is is the way to deal with it sort of shut it out is the way to deal with it what do you do when you
hear all of this well each thing is its own thing so first of all when when the first um agreement
uh was finalized and we were told beforehand listen Hersh is not going to be in this um in this
agreement it was so wonderful that they told us that because then we were purely happy for the
people getting out there was no kind of like you know when you when you're playing Bingo and you
hope that your number comes up there was none of that because we knew he wasn't getting out and and
we felt that it would it made sense the babies and the and the children and the women were getting
out so so instead that I said in this whole 83 days those days those like four and then I think
it was five there was like a bonus five were the only moment of respit in in a torturous situation
and all the more so because we now have grown to know so many of the families so we were watching
and saying like oh my gosh it's moshe's daughter oh my gosh it's y yours niece and you know it
was actual true Joy thank God because you know something that's sad for me and I was thinking of
it yesterday was you know I just miss being happy like I can't be joyful I I try really hard and I
have manifested some Joy I was trying um before each Sunday before Christmas you know there's
um Advent and there are themes of Advent and the the third week was joy and I thought you know
and I really we've been getting such beautiful unbelievable thousands hundreds of thousands of
messages from from Christians around the world that I really wanted to give them a message each
each Sunday of Advent and I was saying you know I wish you Joy and I'm trying to think like how
can I feel Joy and the way that I was able to do it is I was picturing hersh's wedding and I was
picturing her holding Hersh's first baby you know and so I was like creating Joy but I miss actual
Joy like I miss not you I don't want to have to like create it and and fake it I want to actually
have that experience so that was really wonderful when those hostages were released it was a moment
it was a whisper uh for us so that was that first um feeling the second chunk of you're talking
about the failed um attempt of another agreement obviously that's crushing um look that whole
first week when people were being released we were aware that was held together by the finest
and thinnest most delicate of thread and every night we were holding our breath oh my gosh is it
going to work and there was that second or third night where they they said no there's an issue and
we were all like you know so um but it was it's obviously crushing to us to every hostage family
um when because the hostages who were released started to reveal what they experienced and what
the conditions were like where we were already in excruciating pain on so many levels you know that
pain just went skyrocketing breaking through every ceiling and so then it's like complete panic and
anxiety so the thought that that that broke down is for us you know excruciating and then obviously
two Fridays ago with the tragic horrible mistake of the soldiers shooting these hostages who did
every single thing right they did every single thing right I mean it was just horrible and the
truth is I felt terrible for the soldiers I felt terrible for them and you know who's the real I
mean she's such a queen that the mother of um I forget right who said who said first of all I'm
not angry at all and they you know and I love them and I feel for them I mean she's just you know
amazing amazing beautiful soul to know that these obviously you know it was a horrible horrible
mistake but this is what happens in war and conflict and this is what's so sad right all over
the world um whenever there's there's conflict and there's war it there's always mistakes
there's always innocent people hurt always you you mentioned those thousands hundreds hundreds of
thousands of messages um from around the world and your highlighting of hirsh has captured people's
imagination around the world I think partly because of this speech you made which you know
went viral in which you expressed empathy for the woman you imagined who looked like you um in Gaza
and you said there will be a woman who looks just like me and you wrote a poem while Tiny Seed and
you talked about how you faulted those who only get outraged when one side's babies are killed you
showed this empathy for people in Gaza not many people can manage that and you know I've spoken to
lots of them Israelis and Jews who admit that they only really have room for their own pain these are
not people who are going through what you're going through um but they say they can't look at or
really think about the images that are coming from Gaza that instead they're still stuck in October
the 7th you somehow manage to sort of transcend that but do you have sympathy for people who
admit that they just can't do that I do I think look all of us are going through a trauma all of
us and and I don't think it's a competition um meaning obviously people look at families with
loved ones who are held hostage and feel that okay they won and I don't mean that I mean that
the whole entire country is going through a real trauma an actual trauma a physical trauma an
existential trauma a psychological trauma a spiritual trauma I think we're all going through
that and how everybody handles that is going to be different and so I honestly I don't judge
anyone um and one of my dearest friends said to me and she was working very closely she's in
the coexistence world and they meet weekly with pre October 7th um she's an educator who would
meet weekly with um Palestinian Educators and she's an Israeli educator and she said first of
all since the seventh none of us have met and she said and I feel terrible I don't I don't have it
in me right now I don't have it in me right now and I get it I really get it you know like um the
interesting thing is that um people who reach out to me from the other side and it's rare um there's
a young man uh an Arab Muslim who reached out to me he's 24 um to say I'm hersh's age you know
I'm a little older I also love soccer I really want to meet him there's a special time when
you wake up in the middle of the night night and you say a certain type of prayer when you
really want Allah to respond and my mother and I have been getting up and saying that prayer for
hirsh um and that was very powerful for me um to hear from that that side and I also you know
it's also that the Hersh that I know has fought for coexistence has been a pursuer of Peace
has been a minority voice among his his peers throughout his life and his friends um and I feel
that the who I am and who he is this is our voice um and I'm also very grateful that when I was in
university I had a teacher who really taught about the idea of transcending an adversarial Paradigm
that we're trapped in or or we feel that we're trapped in I don't know that we're trapped in it
and that was really the you know the the source of those speeches of of when I speak that way
it's really that what can we do to transcend this horrible cycle that we're caught in and none of us
seem to benefit from it you know it be one thing if like okay it's a bad cycle but it's working
for one side it seems like it's not working for anyone you know that the Israeli government is
saying and has been saying for a long time since this began that it's just the mil the military
pressure will bring back the hostages that is if we're talking about paradigms this is their
Paradigm what do you think about that and have you been tried have you've been trying to talk
to any sort of key office holders about this over the past you know couple of weeks and do you feel
like they're listening to you well we have spoken to and we've been in you know we were invited
as and the hostage families are invited often to these meetings that are I don't go to them John
goes to them I feel like um I'm in enough pain so I don't want to go to a meeting where everybody is
screaming and crying um but I do know that that's the method that we've been told is you know this
is what works I have said a lot I'm not a military strategist I'm not a political uh you know I don't
have Acumen in sort of the Diplomatic or political world I don't understand these tactics um so it's
hard for me obviously to think that that this is the right way to go about it on the other hand
I appreciate that we have been told there's a two-pronged approach here that we need to diminish
hamas's military capacity to do an October 7th again and obviously that is true right we can't
have October 7th happening every few months it's not an option so I get that um and I think that
when we're saying at the same time we're trying to get the hostages back to me it feels like
that's kind of tricky to do those two things that seem very desperately um you know on the on a
spectrum that they would be very far apart um and it's very scary and I don't know I don't know
what to make of it and and I think that people say well but look it worked right because we got
over a hundred people out by doing that um I get very nervous that um we're creating a lot of you
know uh a lot more people who are miserable um in Gaza I mean I see the pictures that everybody
sees of you know these there are hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians whose whose lives
are being ruined and and um you know maybe that's not our intention or that's not our goal but it's
unfortunately it's again that's what happens when you're in conflict and you're in war and I worry
all also about the hostages who are also there um and uh and It's Tricky I don't know what I don't
know what to yeah make of it it's painful I mean I'm not a nor I'm not an objective Observer
right like my child is there so I recognize that I'm I'm not you know someone who's removed
yeah I know you and the other hostage families have been uh critical of some in some ways of
the government's uh fa to sort of Advance those negotiations you know with the with Qatar and
and others but I just wanted to ask you this about you and some some of the other people
who are speaking for the hostage Families how significant is it that so many of you are women
that women have taken the lead in being the voices uh uh and faces of this crisis I mean I think
I've mentioned it before that I do think that um something bothered me a few weeks ago and
I said I said it on a thank God we have young people who've been advising us and saying oh you
need social media and so we have you know one of my um closest friends her daughter who's more
like a niece who's been running the bring Hersh home Instagram and all different social channels
I know nothing about that stuff I don't even have Facebook um you know when you're not friends with
someone in fourth grade at anet you don't have to reconnect when you're you know 50 um so I never
got Facebook because I felt like I it's okay anyway so I we'll tell our listeners that Rachel is spilling
the beans on the fact that we both went to the same school in Chicago that's right except 100
years younger than I am so I think I was probably in 8th grade when you were in kindergarten this
is the most Jewish conversation two women could ever have right exactly Jewish geography um
but uh what's interesting is I was mentioning in one of these like podcast not podcast uh
Instagram video moments I said it occurred to me that they're in the war cabinet there are
five men making the decisions about everybody five white men and I thought and in this negotiating
when they go to you know Poland or DOA or Egypt or wherever whatever these rooms are I'm not sure
I can't speak with 100% certainty because I don't know but I think the only people in those room are
men and I started to think like it's very strange because if there was any other sort of negotiating
going on and there was an a non-representation of part of the people of whom we are trying to
negotiate for I think the whole world would be up in arms and I also do think that you know there's
a perspective that you don't get when you don't have women in a room and I also think there's a
perspective you don't get when you don't have a mother in the room and I'm not saying that I need
to be that person but I would love if there was a mother in one of those rooms because it is a
different voice and I even you know we spoke to a group of high schoolers uh today and when they
said what can we do I said to be honest with you I would love for you guys to come up with some
ideas because you have a very different worldview and perspective you know you're 17 and 18 year old
young people and we have been working on this for 83 days and I would love to hear your ideas and
your perspective I said there's no ego here we're trying to save lives so I don't care where the
ideas come from and I think that that should also be the attitude you know our problem with this
two-pronged approach Jonathan as you mentioned is simply that we it's not that we're against
trying to diminish these you know military Capac ities that could replicate this atrocity that
happened here it's that we're working on that part 247 and we claim that we also equally care
about the hostages and therefore you should be also simultaneously working 247 meaning there
should not be one moment of respit there should be a team of accomplished negotiators professional
negotiators and people who sit together 247 Trump trying to figure out how do we make that work at
the same time otherwise you're not being honest because let's face it if you have two children and
you say I'm going to give each of you exactly the same thing and then you give one of them 100%
of your time and one of them every two weeks you kind of give them some time here and there
and sometimes you get mad and you walk out of the room that is not giving the same to both so
that's where kind of we we feel that that there could be room for improvement you uh you're you're
trying to save lives everyone helping is trying but whoever's listening to this conversation on
a practical level how can they help you so first of all on a practical level if you happen to be
um an American citizen you can call the White House every single day um we spoke to someone
high up in the administration when we were in um Washington a few weeks back um there was a
in Washington and um we met with a lot of um people from the administration and Congress and
John said to this man if this was your son what would you suggest we do every single day to get
your son out and he said it will drive us bananas but you should be calling every single day the
White House and your local elected officials and saying I am not okay that at that time it was I
think 13 that there are 13 Americans and you know 237 or 227 other human beings who are being
held hostage you know now we're at a point where there's um 129 and seven Americans being
held hostage um of those uh 129 and so if you happen to live in America we were told call every
day so we actually have hundreds of thousands the people who call every day and I'm sure that
you know that poor switchboard like answer the telephone answer is like oh no here here we come
again um but they they count and keep track of all the data and metrics and the subjects so
it's important that local elected officials or the highest elected officials no matter where you
live if you live in the UK if you live in Germany if you live in Japan call your local elected
officials and say I am not comfortable that there are human beings still being held hostage
that's a very doable task and the thing that's great about it is that it's very ritualized and
it takes less than a minute so we know I know from all you know my family and friends who do it
every morning while they're boiling their water for their coffee or tea they call the White House
every morning and they're like hey Irene you know like now they know these people you know it's not
okay and um so that's defin itely something doable and I wonder in Israel how do we get to our to our
officials here I think you know I asked actually like do they have a switchboard at the Knesset um
and I don't know that everyone's in agreement on what should happen but I I do think that there's
value in just saying we're not comfortable in the current situation like that having having these
people there is making us very uncomfortable and that's something that you know as of a few
days ago I started to get very nervous because I started to feel like when I was a little girl
I didn't grow up in a in a observant home but my mother always said Jews value life Jews value
life and she I remember she said and it even tells us in the Bible that you can break every
commandment except for there's three um to save someone's life you know that we value life so much
and there's something about what's going on now that started to make me feel very uncomfortable
that I I'm scared about how we feel about those 129 that are still there um I'm scared because
I think it's going to Define us what we decide to do forever and we won't be able to recover
from it um there's also you know there's a verse a pasuk in Vaikra in Leviticus that talks about
you cannot stand idly by as your brother's blood is shed and then at the end of that verse it
says I'm God and there's a question from the commentators why does it say I'm God because you
could just tell me don't stand idly by when you know you see something bad happening why is it
saying I'm God and one of the commentators says because there's never going to be repentance
for that you can never recover from that and so we have to really be asking ourselves now
who are we even if we pay a horrible price who are we and are we okay paying that price
that price being that we won't be who we were Rachel Goldberg Polin we hope your prayers are
answered and you are reunited very soon with Hersh we hope all the hostages are reunited with their
families very very soon thank you for talking with us so openly on Unholy thank you thank you I
hope next time Hersh is here and you can ask him all about his National Geographic days amen we look
forward to very much you thank you for having me