BOSTON – Nearly 1,000 community members packed a ballroom at the Omni Boston Hotel at the Seaport and applauded Rachel Goldberg-Polin and her husband Jon Polin before they bore witness to the couple’s pain and grief of losing their only son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in the Oct. 7, 2023, terror attacks in southern Israel.

The emotional event, “In Conversation with Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin,” was hosted by Combined Jewish Philanthropies. CJP President and CEO Rabbi Marc Baker moderated the talk.

During his introduction, Baker noted Hersh was his daughter’s counselor during her 12th grade Gann Academy Israel experience. The family has other ties to Greater Boston: Rachel Goldberg-Polin attended Brandeis University, and Jon Polin has a sister who lives in the area.

Goldberg-Polin is the author of a new book, “When We See You Again.” She told the audience the book is not a memoir or a tell-all or a self-help book that describes how they rose like the phoenix from their pain. They are a long way from that. “Tragically,” she said, “it’s just packages of pain.”

Before the attacks on Simchat Torah, she said they were a “completely normal” Israeli American couple living in Jerusalem. They had three children, with Hersh the eldest and their two daughters. Before living in Jerusalem, the couple lived in Chicago.

Goldberg-Polin used the analogy of their life before as being “a warm beige” in the book. “Deliciously pareve,” she told the audience.

However, Goldberg-Polin in particular managed to raise her voice and become a megaphone humanizing the hostages as more than just a number. Their 23-year-old son had been at the Nova music festival during the attacks. He was severely wounded while hiding in a bomb shelter with others (his left forearm arm had been blown off by a grenade).

Hersh was held hostage, starved and tormented, in a tunnel in Gaza for 328 days before he was executed by Hamas. His body recovered from a Gaza tunnel in August 2024.

The couple said their story, and that of Hersh’s, is now part of the Jewish story and at times they have felt that all of the world’s 15.7 million Jews are with them.

Sunday’s conversation was not a recount of the events of Oct. 7, but more about how the couple are navigating a never-ending journey of unrepairable, unrelenting grief and loss.

They spoke at length about what it means to be Jewish, and how the tools of being Jewish help them cope, and what the community has meant to them along the way.

Goldberg-Polin described the family as bearing a huge weight of loss, “which is not nice to us.” Polin brought along a book that had some of Hersh’s writings from his gap year and mandatory IDF service, including some titled, “Why Michael Jordan is the GOAT,” and a piece about how to plan a trek abroad, which Hersh enjoyed doing.

“‘Every trek like that requires a bit of planning,’” Polin read. Hersh went on to advise connecting to nature and disconnecting from the phone.

Goldberg-Polin spoke about the “gift” of her family’s final Shabbat dinner the night before the attacks, where Hersh danced with the Torah on the holiday of Simchat Torah. She still lights three candles for her three children at Shabbat.

She discussed trying to reconcile Shabbat as “the source of all our blessing” – quoting from the verse in the hymn sung while welcoming in Shabbat, “Lecha Dodi” – and the pain she feels for the loss of her son. Shabbat, she said, must still be the source of her blessing; however she’s still “trying to figure out how to hold the pain when I get to Shabbat.”

“I’m hopelessly Jewish,” she added, “and that’s my problem, and that’s my savior, and it doesn’t mean I’m OK. I’m totally broken and I’m not normal.” She likened Judaism to having a huge Band-Aid adhered to her.

“Bringing our community together last night was a powerful reminder of who we are at our best as Jews,” noted Baker in an email. “At a time when so much feels fragile, choosing to come together, to listen, to bear witness, and to be present with one another matters deeply.” Θ