126: Wartime Diaries - Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin
Israel Story
Israel Story
4.8 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 30 November 2023
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Many of you have probably heard, or read about, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, the parents of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was kidnapped from the Nova Party. In many ways they’ve emerged as the face of the hostage families - they’ve met with Biden and the Pope, they were on the cover of Time Magazine, Rachel has spoken at the UN and at the ‘March for Israel’ Rally in Washington D.C. And in all those places, as well as in countless other interviews, speeches and meetings, they’ve told the heartbreaking tale of the two text messages Hersh sent on the morning of October 7th, one saying “I love you” and the other “I’m sorry.” He wrote those messages from within a shelter, where he was hiding with 28 other partygoers. Eighteen of them were killed, and Hersh - whose left arm was blown off - was badly wounded. Shortly thereafter, Hersh and three others from the shelter were loaded onto Hamas pickup trucks and taken into Gaza. It has now been 55 days.
The end song is Tefilat Haderech ("The Traveler's Prayer") by Shai Tsabari.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I go out on the porch on Friday nights and I scream the brahah to him with my hands up in the air. |
| 0:08.0 | And, you know, and then I come in and we have this big, horrible picture that somebody gave us of him with his name spelled wrong. |
| 0:14.0 | And it's behind our front door. |
| 0:16.0 | And I kiss his head and I smell his hair on the picture |
| 0:21.0 | because I know what that smell is of his hair. |
| 0:25.9 | You know, and I just wait and crave |
| 0:30.1 | for that time when I can smell his hair. |
| 0:35.3 | You know, it's, they just brought his bag back on Friday. They found his bag |
| 0:40.1 | seven weeks later that he had taken to the music festival. And I unpacked it yesterday and I was |
| 0:46.7 | taking out. Now normally we're always like, Hirsch, you need to shower. My God, what is that |
| 0:52.0 | smell? And I was taking out his clothes and I was finding the armpits |
| 0:56.8 | and inhaling it like, you know, like it was like the most wonderful thing I could ever smell, |
| 1:05.8 | you know, but John. I, this morning I went for the first time, State 51, I went to the above ground bomb shelter |
| 1:12.7 | where Hirsch came under attack, lost his arm and was then taken captive. And as I was there, |
| 1:21.2 | I was thinking, it's so close. It's like a couple of kilometers from here, a mile and a half. |
| 1:29.3 | Let's just go right now. Like my friend has a 4x4. |
| 1:31.3 | Let's just go cut across the fields and go get him. |
| 1:33.3 | We thought better of that. |
| 1:35.3 | But it's absolutely crossed my mind. |
| 1:38.3 | I mean, he is so close. |
| 1:41.3 | Hey, listeners, it's Mishi. |
| 1:45.0 | So, as you know, during these incredibly difficult days, we're trying to bring you voices |
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