Among the Mourners of Zion and Jerusalem
Jonathan Polin and Rachel Goldberg, parents of Israeli hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, attend a demonstration on August 29, 2024 by the families of the hostages taken captive in the Gaza Strip since the October 7 by Hamas. (Photo by Jack Guez/AFP via Getty Images)
Here in Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s neighborhood, the bewildering events of the past year were reduced to one human face. Matti Friedman writes from Jerusalem.
Last September I had dinner with Hersh Goldberg-Polin at his home in Jerusalem, which isn’t far from mine. His parents are friends, Chicago natives who came years ago and stayed.
Over the preceding years I’d seen Hersh grow from a skinny kid with a funny grin into a youth with big curly hair, then a young man with a buzz cut as he persevered through his …
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