NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin cannot go back to the lives that they led before their son, Hersh, was kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023, and shot dead by his captors six months ago.

“We’ve been saying, ‘Can we go back to high tech and to teaching?’ And the answer right now is no,” Jon Polin said at the Jewish Funders Network conference on Tuesday. “We see… so much that’s broken in the world, in the Jewish community and in Israel, and we’re picking our spots. We’re sharpening it, but we are motivated to play our role in making things better, making the world better.” He added that they will be guided by what they believe Hersh would have wanted them to do.

Yet they added no matter what, first they would continue their efforts on behalf of the remaining 59 hostages still in Gaza.

“We have these cherished 59 human beings who need us at this very second… I think of Alon Ohel, who right this moment is shackled and alone and it closes my throat because he’s my son, and he’s your son,” Rachel Goldberg-Polin said.

“We are going to be in this fight first and foremost for the remaining 59 hostages, and then continue once we bring them all home to give all of us a better, more vibrant Israel and a more vibrant democratic Jewish life. More to come on that soon,” Jon said.

The American-born, Jerusalem-based Goldberg-Polin family emerged as one of the leading international voices on behalf of the hostages since the Oct. 7 attacks, speaking forcefully but also considerately and regularly citing Jewish sources and tradition in their remarks. They have spoken in a variety of international fora, including the United Nations, the Democratic National Convention and before Pope Francis. Interviewing them onstage, Jim Joseph Foundation CEO Barry Finestone referred to them as two of the “lamed vavniks” — in Jewish tradition, the 36 people upon whom the world rests.

At the conference, Polin highlighted the efforts of Diaspora Jewry on behalf of the hostages and their family specifically, saying it gave them strength over the past year and a half and citing the Israelite tribes that did not cross into the Holy Land but nevertheless fought for those that did.

“They said, ‘We’re going to stay here, but anytime our brothers are at war, we will be there with them.’ And that model is what happens, and it is what we have always done, and is what we are doing today, and is what everybody in this room has done being by our side for the last 536 days,” he said. 

Rachel told the audience about a recent conversation that she and Jon had with released hostage Or Levy, who had been kidnapped with Hersh and kept for a time in captivity with him. During it, Levy told them that Hersh had told him about a concept from Holocaust survivor and psychologist Viktor Frankl, that so long as you have a reason to live, you can find a way to live.

“Hersh was going around in the tunnels, quoting Viktor Frankl… and he was saying to everyone… ‘When you have a why, you will find the how,’ and this was how Viktor Frankl survived the Holocaust. And Or said to us that Hersh was saying to him, ‘You have your son, you have your why. You’re going to figure out how to make it through this,’” Rachel said. “We are, as Jon said, distilling what is our ‘why.’”

Asked by Finestone why they speak so candidly about the terrible violence that befell their son, Jon said it was not out of a desire to shock or disturb people but to make clear the conditions that the hostages are in, noting that some Israeli leaders expressed shock at the emaciated, tortured state of the captives who were released in the latest ceasefire agreement. 

“We hear from [released hostages Eli Sharabi and Or Levy] that one of the first things they work on in the hospital is learning how to walk again because for 491 days, they didn’t spread their feet more than 10 centimeters apart because they had weighted shackles on their feet, and that is what the conditions are for Alon [Ohel] and the others. We all need to know that, we all need to be responding accordingly,” he said.

Rachel stressed that the path ahead for the Jewish people will not be an easy one, but that, she said, was fine.

“We still believe that hope is necessary. That’s not advice, it’s not suggestive, it’s mandatory. But hope is not enough. In the Mishnah, we are commanded to pursue better,” she said. “Judaism is a lot of things — it’s not easy. And that’s fine. I’m proud of that. Hard is not bad, it’s simply hard.”

She added: “We must have unity. It doesn’t matter if you don’t like what that person is saying. We can be different and we must be one.”