Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was born within the Bay Space close to San Francisco and moved to Israel when he was about seven, was kidnapped on October 7 close to the grounds of the Nova music competition, the place he was celebrating his twenty third birthday. He was grievously injured that day and was seen in a video clip being compelled to climb onto the again of a ute together with his left arm blown off.
Israeli forces found his physique in a tunnel beneath the town of Rafah on the weekend. Israel stated Hamas had killed him; a forensic examination confirmed the hostages had been shot at shut vary someday between Thursday and Friday morning, Israel’s Well being Ministry stated.
About the identical time he was being kidnapped, Goldberg-Polin discovered two texts from her youngster. “I like you guys,” he had written to his household. “I’m sorry.”
“Are you OK?” Goldberg-Polin wrote again. “Please tell us you’re OK.” There was no reply.
Herzog, whose place is essentially ceremonial, expressed regret that Israel had failed each to guard Goldberg-Polin on October 7 and to deliver him residence alive.
“I apologize within the identify of the state of Israel,” he stated. “I apologise that the nation you immigrated to on the age of seven, wrapped within the Israeli flag, couldn’t maintain you secure.”
In feedback seemingly directed at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Herzog demanded that the nation’s leaders take motion to safe the liberty of the remaining hostages in Gaza.
“Determination-makers should do every little thing doable, with willpower and braveness, to avoid wasting those that can nonetheless be saved and to deliver again all our little children, our brothers and sisters,” he stated.
“This isn’t a political objective, and it should not change into a political dispute. It’s a supreme ethical, Jewish and human obligation of the state of Israel to its residents.”
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Different notable individuals who attended the funeral included Jacob Lew, the US ambassador to Israel, who appeared shaken as he watched the younger man’s burial, and Eli Groner, the previous director-general of the Israeli prime minister’s workplace.
Polin stated his son had challenged him and different members of the family to assume exhausting about a wide selection of points, together with the ethics of consuming animals and Israeli settlement coverage.
He was “all the time searching for to grasp the opposite,” he stated.
In his bed room, Hersh Goldberg-Polin had saved an oblong piece of art work that learn “JERUSALEM IS EVERYONE’S” in English, Hebrew and Arabic.
Yaniv Mezuman, 48, a former instructor, stated Goldberg-Polin was a “particular soul” who confirmed unbelievable mental curiosity.
“He projected mild on everybody he met,” he stated. “I fell in love with him inside a second of assembly him.”
This text initially appeared in The New York Occasions.