Hersh Goldberg-Polin, perhaps the best known of the 240 hostages abducted during the Oct. 7 terror attack on Israel, was buried Monday in Jerusalem, two days after Israeli forces found him and five others shot to death in a tunnel under the Gaza city of Rafah and as protests roiled the country over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s handling of the war.
In a funeral attended by thousands and live streamed on You Tube, Israeli President Issac Herzog apologized to Goldberg-Polin’s surviving parents, younger sisters and grandparents, and to the entire nation, for the failures of Oct. 7 and in the nearly 11 months of war since.
“How sorry I am that we didn’t protect Hersh on that dark day, how sorry I am that we failed to bring him home,” Herzog said. “In his life and in his death, Hersh has touched all of humanity deeply. He has shaped our world and woven his essence of light and love into the story of the Jewish people and into our human story.”
Goldberg-Polin, 23, was born in Oakland, California, and moved to Israel as a child. His parents, Jon and Rachel have become the leading spokespeople for the hostages, meeting multiple times with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, speaking at the United Nations and last month’s Democratic National Convention, having an audience with the pope and doing scores of interviews.
They and his sisters, Libby and Orly, each gave emotional eulogies. On their shirts, torn in mourning as Jewish tradition dictates, were the masking tape strips they have made iconic that mark the days since the hostages were abducted: 332.
