Daily Podcasts Video Research

How Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin find grace in their shattered world

JL;DR SUMMARY Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin have become prominent embodiments of resilience and hope in the aftermath of their son Hersh's tragic kidnapping and murder by Hamas militants. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

JL;DR members get full summaries of all articles in the archive, including this one. Donate & start reading »

Tags

HamasResilienceRachel Goldberg PolinHostage CrisisHersh Goldberg PolinGeopoliticsReconciliationJon PolinCross Cultural Dialogue

Places mentioned

Palestinian Territories
"Since their son, Hersh, was kidnapped from the Nova music festival in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, taken hostage in Gaza and, later, murdered by his captors, the American-Israeli couple have become, for many, the personification of an entire nations pain."
Jerusalem, Israel
"and he was beside himself. He couldnt believe that people were not on the streets advocating for Avera Mengistu. There were four or five people who would stand up on this square at the top of Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem a couple times a week,"
Palo Alto, California, United States
"The couple is speaking next week at the Z3 Conference in Palo Alto, California, near where they lived in Berkeley before moving to Israel in 2008."
Berkeley, California, United States
"The couple is speaking next week at the Z3 Conference in Palo Alto, California, near where they lived in Berkeley before moving to Israel in 2008."
Oakland, California, United States
"But I know that it will be an embrace from the wonderful Bay Area Jewish community. We have felt the love and support and appreciate it. It sounds crazy to say that we feel it, but its like a visceral, tangible, tactile feeling of support and love. And we felt your confusion and we felt your pain and we felt your concern, and it helped us, and it touched us, and we will always feel a huge debt of gratitude to the Bay Area, because thats where Hersh was born, and thats where our older daughter, whos younger than Hersh, thats where she was born. They were both born at Alta Bates Hospital in Oakland."

Support this source

This item was indexed and curated by Cairo, JL;DR's web crawler.
Cairo Item ID 65692
Cairo Source ID 42
Retrieved 2025-11-01 05:30:53 UTC
Curated 2025-11-01 08:30:44 UTC