On Jewish Communal Pain – A Letter from a Friend

The word “community” often feels overused, but for me, it takes on a particular meaning—it sits at the core of what makes Jews a “people.” Our Jewish community is like an extended family, where every person plays a unique and valuable role. We share our joys and struggles, our highs and lows, always finding ways to support one another. Whether it’s close family, friends with kids, friends without kids, or those we’ve only just met, we are all bound by a sense of transcendent togetherness. Just this week, one of my friends, an active Zionist navigating the complexities of the world through the lens of parenthood, reached out after hearing the news about Hersh Goldberg-Polin. His message resonated deeply with me, reminding me once again of the strength and compassion that define our shared family. I felt it was important to share that here.

Dear Leel,

I stopped reading most of the hostage crisis news months ago. This isn’t for me, I told myself. I’ve borne enough witness. I will continue my volunteer work, day in and day out, to make Israel safe, and to make the world safer for Jews. But I don’t need to read every story, or watch the new footage, or hang on to the latest news out of the negotiations. Maybe it was a way to selfishly preserve my own sanity. Maybe it was a refusal to be a target of Hamas’ psychological warfare. Maybe I was just hiding.

One clip did break through my self-imposed wall. I was driving, listening to a podcast about Israeli news, and I didn’t hit skip quickly enough. In an instant, my car was filled with the pleas of a mother crying out for her child. “It’s Mama, Hersh” rang out. A group of family members for the hostages held in Gaza were gathered at the border, loudspeakers pointed outward. They were shouting out to their brothers, sisters, fathers, grandmothers, nieces and nephews. Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mighty lioness who had flown to New York mere days after her son was captured by terrorists to give testimony in his name, was speaking to her child, Hersh. Her pain hit me in a way nothing else had since this war began. She was talking to him, not knowing if he could hear her, not knowing if he was alive. I don’t speak Hebrew, and when Rachel switched to the ancient tongue of the Jewish people, I could not translate. But I heard, and I understood.

I hope the world heard. Hersh belonged to all of us. He was taken too soon, because he was a Jew. I have many thoughts on the current situation – on the need to get the hostages home, on the need to prevent another October 7, on the many fronts on which Israel is fighting and Diaspora Jews and Jewish students and young professionals and alte kakers and bubbes and babies and all the rest of us must keep fighting.

I have thoughts, too, on the position our national leaders have taken since we learned of Hersh’s murder, and the murder of five other hostages. I will not share them here. Today, I am simply a Jewish parent, sharing in the pain of another.

Am Yisrael Chai.

Sam