Just a week after When We See You Again, Rachel Goldberg-Polin’s heartfelt and heartbreaking memoir about the murder of her son Hersh by Hamas terrorists was published, it has hit the top spot on the New York Times bestseller list.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. Part of his arm was shot off during the abduction, and he was held captive in Gaza, enduring physical and psychological torture and starvation, until the terrorists executed him in a tunnel after 330 days.
Goldberg-Polin, who moved with her family to Jerusalem from the US in 2008, became an unlikely activist for the release of her son and the hundreds of other hostages. A slight, soft-spoken woman, she made her voice heard around the world, meeting with then-US president Joe Biden and Pope Francis, and speaking at the United Nations in Geneva and at the 2024 Democratic National Convention. She was accompanied in much of this activity by her husband, Jon Goldberg-Polin. Time Magazine named her as one of its 100 most influential people in 2024.
Goldberg-Polin spent much of the time Hersh was held hostage meeting with representatives from the press, and took to wearing a piece of tape with the number of days since he was kidnapped on her shirt, so she didn’t have to repeat the number. This influenced the protesters advocating for the release of the hostages, and at demonstrations, a piece of tape with the number of days since October 7 was worn by many participants.
But despite all the effort she and her husband put in, Hamas chose to kill Hersh in late August 2024, along with five other hostages – Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Ori Danino, and Alex Lobanov – a group whom Goldberg memorably dubbed “the beautiful six,” and she turned to writing as a way to cope with her grief.
In addition to becoming the number one New York Times bestseller, When We See You Again is in fourth place on the Amazon bestseller list.
In a memorable interview last week with Anderson Cooper on the CBS program, 60 Minutes, Goldberg-Polin paraphrased a quote from her book about how she had kept going during the fight to free Hersh, and how the news of his death devastated her: “And after all of that torture, misery, agony, burning, searing, battering, and torment, I now found out: that had been the good part. He had been alive.” When We See You Again is about the “before” time in her life, when Hersh was alive, and how she is trying to cope with the “after.”
“The reason that I’m in this constant state of yearning is because of the love. The grief is a badge of love because it is the love that is continuing to grow in the absence of the person that we adore. And that’s a price I’m willing to pay,” she told Cooper.
Now, readers all over the world can read her wise words about her grief, and get to know Hersh through the eyes of his loving mother.
Source:
www.jpost.com
