Montreal community embraces parents of slain Israeli hostage
By Joel Goldenberg
The Suburban
Federation CJA’s closing event of its 2024-2025 All In Campaign featured Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an Israeli-American who was kidnapped by Hamas Oct. 7, 2023 and slain with five other captives by the terrorist group around Aug. 31, 2024.
The event also featured Israeli Consul-General Paul Hirschson and touching musical performances by Israeli singer Michal Greenglick, whose brother Shauli was killed in combat in Gaza in December 2023; and Arab-Israeli singer and actress Valerie Hamaty. Also in attendance were Raquel and Alain Look, parents of former Côte St. Luc resident Alexandre Look, who died while defending others at the Nova music festival Oct. 7. Goldberg-Polin was kidnapped from the festival, where hundreds of young people were killed.
Hirschson expressed to the full house at the Gelber Centre, in one of his last public appearances before returning to Israel, his appreciation of the Montreal Jewish community.
“There isn’t another Jewish community in the world which is as engaged with Israel as you are,” he said. “I want to take the opportunity to say thank you.”
Moderator Lisa Singer Miller, a Federation CJA volunteer, asked Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin, who recounted fond memories of their son, what the Montreal community could do to bolster them in Israel.
Jon Polin said that “we all know there are challenging times right now.
“But we are 15 million Jews globally in a world of eight and a half billion people. So yes, we should try to fight narratives, and to fight the online battle, but it’s really hard. What we can control is to flood the world with our goodness and if the world wants to embrace us for contributing the best technology and the best medicine and the best legal and academic minds, and on and on and on, then great. And if they don’t, we’re going to keep doing that stuff anyway!….Let’s just be proud!
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, asked to provide a memory of Hersh, said she had to “learn to feel someone in a different way. I very much feel Hersh all the time. I even stop during the day and say “Hersh, are you here?’ and I say to myself, ‘I’m here, Mama.’
“For me, something I think about — I had a son and I loved him, and he knew it. And he loved me, and I knew it. I was blessed, and I am blessed.” n
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