Rachel Goldberg-Polin confronts grief after son Hersh’s captivity and death

Rachel Goldberg-Polin has spent the months since her son’s death carrying a grief shaped by captivity, public scrutiny and the burden of unanswered questions. Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the American-Israeli hostage abducted from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel, was held for nearly 11 months before Israeli forces recovered his body from a Hamas tunnel in Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Aug. 31, 2024.

He was one of six hostage bodies recovered from the tunnel, and the White House confirmed that one of them was Hersh, an American citizen. President Joe Biden said Hersh had just turned 23 and had lost his arm during the attack, calling the death devastating and outrageous. Israeli officials later buried him in Jerusalem on Sept. 2, 2024, closing one chapter of a family ordeal that had already become global news.

For Rachel Goldberg-Polin and her husband, Jon Polin, the loss was inseparable from months of public advocacy. The couple became among the most visible voices pressing for the hostages’ return, using interviews, public appearances and appeals to keep pressure on Israel, Hamas and international negotiators. The White House described them as relentless champions for their son and for all hostages, a phrase that captured how the family’s private tragedy had been pulled into the center of a broader diplomatic failure.

Hersh’s death intensified calls for a cease-fire and hostage deal, and it also exposed the emotional cost borne by families when negotiations stall. Rachel Goldberg-Polin has spoken publicly about grief, advocacy and the uneasy sense of responsibility that can settle on parents after a child is taken and killed in captivity. In a later interview, she said she felt like she had failed, a raw admission that reflected the punishing aftermath many hostage families face long after the headlines move on.

That public reckoning is set to continue. A memoir by Rachel Goldberg-Polin, titled When We See You Again, is scheduled for publication on April 21, 2026. It will add another layer to a story that has already become larger than one family, documenting what it means to survive a hostage crisis when the rescue never comes and the grief becomes part of public life.