157 Days
This is not my usual blog. This is not funny.
This is heartbreaking.
Last week I went to another planet. The inhabitants of this planet were like us, except that they were incredibly broken. And yet, in a way that made no sense, they were also incredibly strong. This, despite everyone on this planet missing something: a limb, a child, a spouse, a parent, a feeling of safety. Still, these inhabitants bravely took time to explain to visitors, strangers really, how they came to be so broken and yet so strong. They did this even though they were there only in the physical sense. Mentally, they were a few miles away, across a bloody border, where their loved ones were being held captive. They spoke while an internal hourglass behind their eyes poured out time; 2 hours, 2 weeks, 2 months, 3 months, 4 months…157 days.
Bring them home. Please. Bring them home now.
The planet was Israel; the inhabitants, Israelis. And while Israel is indeed on this planet, forgive the metaphor. It’s just that I’ve never met people on Earth who, in the face of such devastation, operate with such optimism, determination, strength and compassion. And above all else, humanity.
These are people who, in the aftermath of October 7, provided medical treatment to terrorists who raped their daughters until their pelvises broke. They are the people who send Israeli doctors and nurses, at Israeli cost, to tend to the monsters who slaughtered their babies, set fire to parents and grandparents, and too much more savagery to list. On October 7 the risk factors of being murdered or kidnapped, were being asleep in your bed or dancing.
Bring them home. Please. Bring them home now.
One of the young people dancing was 23-year-old American-Israeli music festival lover, Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Hersh was at the Nova Music Festival where he and other attendees, after fleeing from armed terrorists swarming the festival site, huddled in a saferoom dodging Hamas-propelled grenades. Ultimately, one grenade inside the saferoom detonated, blowing off Hersh’s left arm and taking the life of his best friend, Aner Shapira. The last image his parents have of Hersh is him being loaded into a flatbed truck, a bone dangling where his arm should be.
Bring them home. Please. Bring them home now.
We met Hersh’s mother, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, in a small building near Jerusalem. If you don’t get a chance to meet Rachel – and I hope you do – please follow her on Instagram at bring.hersh.home. You will see what we saw, a slight woman who speaks softly about every mother’s worst nightmare, a nightmare that is her reality. Rachel sat at a conference table, a piece of tape with the number of days Hersh has been missing pressed to her sweater, hands clasped, back straight, face weary with desperation. She shared sweet stories, even made us laugh, and conveyed her devout optimism about Hersh coming home. Hearing her lay out the reasons he must be alive with matter-of-fact determination was wholly convincing. If for no other reason, then because any child borne of this incredible woman, a woman who has existed since October 7 without sleep or relief, surviving only on a diet of worry and prayer, who boasts the grit of one million mothers and who has cried one million tears… any child of hers, being even half as formidable, well, you’d believe Hersh is coming home, too.
Rachel described herself as being stuck in an ambiguous trauma. Someone run over by a truck can begin healing when pulled from beneath the wheels, but for Rachel, and all the hostage families, they remain underneath that truck. 157 days later. Can you imagine what it must be like to ruminate every sleepless night knowing your child — your twinkly-eyed, loving son — who, missing an arm, is being held while in dire need of medical treatment? I can’t. I bet you can’t. And Rachel can’t. The internal hourglass pours out time behind her eyes. And time is running out.
Bring them home. Please. Bring them home now.
No one reading this should be complacent. Help bring the hostages home now. Help the families living under that truck. Help them because sleeping or dancing shouldn’t result in beheadings, mass shooting, and torture. Or just help because allowing such barbarism to exist there, gives license for barbarism to exist everywhere.
When you travel to Israel, it takes a while after landing home to acclimate. There are so many other important stories we heard and people we met. My aim is to share more stories soon. In the interim, if you want to get involved in helping bring Israeli hostages home, please follow the links at the end of this blog or go to bring.hersh.home on Instagram and click the “how to Help” button.
Am Yisrael Chai
https://docs.google.com/document/d/10HYCE0HDGlPGun24cVGfd9YtgqxcPXeV9kyPIBXzfks/edit?pli=1
https://linktr.ee/bringhershhome
