Rachel Goldberg-Polin now lives by a new calendar – not weeks, or months, but days of absence and anguish.
Every morning when she wakes, she writes a number on a piece of tape and sticks it to her clothing. It’s the number of days since her son Hersh was taken hostage – she says stolen – by Hamas.When we meet in Jerusalem that number is 155.On the morning of 7 October, she turned on her phone to find two messages from Hersh. The first said: “I love you.” The second sent immediately afterwards read: “I’m sorry.” She called – no answer.”It rang and rang,” she says.While the war rages in Gaza, Rachel’s battle is to bring home her son, and the other hostages.Hersh is among 130 hostages from the 7 October attacks remaining in Gaza. Israel believes at least 30 of them are already dead.”Every morning I make a concerted effort and say to myself, ‘now, pretend to be human so that I can get up and try to save Hersh and the other remaining hostages’,” she tells me. “What I want to do is lay in a ball on the floor weeping, but that won’t help them.”
Rachel – a mother of three – is small and slight but she is a powerhouse. We meet at her family’s campaign headquarters – the office of a venture capital company, lent by a friend. Campaigning is now her full-time job. She hasn’t been back to work since the day of the attacks. Neither has her husband Jon.
