Jon Polin, the father of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was abducted by Hamas terrorists on October 7th, 2023, and murdered in captivity, spoke with Arutz Sheva-Israel National News ahead of the Passover holiday.
Our conversation with Jon comes on the heels of a song and prayer event for the release of the hostages in Jerusalem. He explains that the motivation for the event was to raise awareness to the hostages, as he feels the issue is slowly moving to the back of the minds of many.
Polin also notes that while it was important, most of the other activism he has been involved in since his son was abducted has been difficult and draining. In contrast, such events were the only activities that were not draining and only gave him and his wife the strength to keep going. "We got together with hundreds of people, no screaming, no anger; just being together, in community, in pray, and in song, and it was uplifting and it was a way for all of us to go into the holiday understanding the heaviness of where we're at, understanding that we must keep going and united in doing so."
As public discourse is heating up again, Jon believes that the first and most important step to begin the process of rehabilitation is to bring back the hostages. To him, the second to that is doing so in a way that Israel is unified, and he believes we can do that again. He notes that the unifying spirit is "under the surface, and we need to make sure that we don't get pulled apart, that we stay together, and I think we can do it."
Regarding his decision to continue fighting for the hostages, Polin explains that he and Rachel declared their goal to bring home all the hostages, assuming they would be alive, early in the saga. "We said that we're going bring him home alive, we are going to make sure he begins the process of rehabilitation, and we're going to get right back out there to keep on fighting if there are still hostages."
He shares that one of the things that kept him motivated was the fact that as a teen, Hersh would talk about and care about Avera Mengistu, who was held by Hamas since 2014 and released in the recent hostage deal, even when he was not spoken about by many. After Avera was released, he shared that they held an extra celebration because they knew how much it would have meant to Hersh.
Ahead of Passover, Jon says that while he encourages joy during holidays and Shabbat, he sees Passover, the holiday of freedom, as different. "I think that every Jew, everywhere in the world, should beam into their seder this year this depth, the twistedness of having a holiday of redemption, when we, as a people, don't have it. They should be sad. Last year, we cried our way through the seder; that's when we still had hope that Hersh was alive, and we still did not know the details of what was happening to the hostages. We now know, we've heard the testimonies of the released hostages, we know that I we sit at our seder, Matan Angrest, with his limp arm and his asymetrical face is going to be suffering in captivity. Alon Ohel is going to be sitting with shrapnel in one blind eye, shrapnel in his hand, by himself likely still in chains, likely still being starved, in captivity, and we can't sugar-coat that."
He believes that during this holiday more than any other, the Jewish people must understand and embrace the gravity of the situation and even says the children should be taught about what is happening. "If everyone has a sad, challenging, difficult seder, I think that's the right thing for this year."