New act of psychological terror. While the negotiation over the Israeli hostages is at a standstill, the military wing of Hamas published, on April 24, a propaganda video showing the Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 24, kidnapped at the Nova festival (more of 364 killed, 40 people kidnapped), in southern Israel, during the attack on October 7. This three-minute clip, posted online in the middle of the week of Jewish Passover, constitutes his first proof of life. The young man, who had part of his left arm torn off by a grenade explosion during the terrorist attack, declares that he has been captive for “nearly 200 days”, a milestone reached on April 23.
Pale and thin, he addresses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he accuses of neglecting the hostages: “While you prepare the festive meals with your family, think of the kidnapped people who are here in an underground hell.” A reproach from which his mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, is exempt, who posts a video almost daily on the Instagram account bring.hersh.home“, followed by more than 100,000 people. For more than six months, this 54-year-old teacher from Chicago has been fighting on all fronts, wearing a T-shirt indicating the number of days of captivity endured by the hostages His mission: to raise awareness around the world about the plight of these captives, fewer than 100 of whom are estimated to be alive, and among whom is Hersh, his eldest son.
She spoke to Joe Biden and the Pope
Born in Berkeley, the young man was last seen, filmed by his captors, during his kidnapping, pushed into a van of the terrorist group leaving for Gaza. On the Saturday morning of the attack, this football lover (involved in a league of Jewish and Arab players), of travel and trans music had sent two text messages to his family (“I love you” and “I’m sorry”). Since then, Rachel and her husband Jon, who immigrated to Jerusalem fifteen years ago with Hersh and his two sisters, have devoted their time to trying to convince the great people of this world to do everything to bring back their son, and his companions in misfortune. , at home.
Over the weeks, Rachel Goldberg-Polin has become one of the most vibrant voices in this fight for the release of hostages in Gaza. The magazine Time has just ranked her among the “100 most influential personalities” of the year, confirming her status as an ambassador for this cause. She says she prays that this recognition “helps the world not to abandon these 133 souls, from 25 countries, five religions and aged from 15 months to 86 years”, held captive in Gaza. And calls not to turn a blind eye to the suffering “of all the innocents in Gaza”. The one who punctuates each of her interventions with the mantra “hope is obligatory”, about Hersh, whom none of the 109 hostages released during the truce negotiated at the end of November had been able to see, but also with biblical references, spared no effort.
Seven days after October 7, Rachel Goldberg-Polin participated in a video conference with US President Joe Biden. On November 14, she spoke, dignified and haughty, behind smoked lens sunglasses, at a rally in Washington bringing together thousands of participants, near the Capitol. A practicing Jew with a “modern” tendency, a scholar, she went the following week to the Vatican to meet Pope Francis, in the company of around ten other hostage families. She also gave a speech at the United Nations, as well as at the Davos Economic Forum.
During her interventions, Rachel Goldberg-Polin appears a little thinner each time (she barely eats, thinking of the meals consisting of half a pita bread taken by the captives), hair grayer, often exhausted, sometimes on the verge of tears, but never angry. To bring back Hersh, who is named after her great-grandfather and a great-uncle who perished in the Holocaust, she believes this emotion “is not constructive.”
Unlike certain families of hostages, who recently decided to join the ranks of demonstrators against the Netanyahu government, and who demand the resignation of the Prime Minister, Rachel and her husband Jon, known in the world of tech, channel their frustration differently . By campaigning tirelessly, in the aisles of the Knesset and especially those of the American Congress, to tell the story of Hersh, a “citizen of the world”, and to call for the absolute urgency of an agreement.
During an interview given to some foreign media, this courageous mother explained that she avoided following the news and rumors, which were too anxiety-provoking, relayed by the press. Rachel, for her part, clung to the hope that the diplomatic support given to her country, in the wake of the Iranian missile and drone attack on April 13 on Israeli soil, could help resolve the hostage crisis. In one of her videos, she felt that if mothers participated in major decisions [tous les membres du cabinet de guerre israélien sont des hommes, NDLR]“the dynamics would be very different”.
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