Rabbi’s link to Hersh
US-born Rabbi Yonatan Sadoff of Kehilat Nitzan shule, who later lived and worked in Israel, was a friend of Jon Polin, Hersh's father, from their university days.
A Melbourne rabbi who knew the father of slain Israeli-American hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin has expressed his shock and sadness at the murder of the young man and five other hostages, shortly before IDF rescuers in Gaza could reach them.
Goldberg-Polin, 23, who had been at the Nova music festival, was among 251 hostages abducted to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7.
IDF soldiers found his body and the remains of Carmel Gat, 40, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Alexander Lobanov, 33, Almog Sarusi, 27, and Ori Danino, 25, in a Gaza tunnel on Saturday. Goldberg-Polin had lost part of an arm in a grenade attack during his abduction.
US-born Rabbi Yonatan Sadoff of Kehilat Nitzan shule, who later lived and worked in Israel, was a friend of Jon Polin, Hersh’s father, from their university days.
“We studied in the same Hebrew class at the University of Wisconsin and we were on the one-year program of Hebrew University in the early 1990s. He was always a genuinely decent and caring person and very Zionistic,” the rabbi told The AJN on Monday.
“He made aliyah and established a life for himself in Israel, which is the dream of so many young Zionists. It makes the tragedy even more heart-shattering.”
Rabbi Sadoff had heard Jon Polin’s name mentioned in news reports about his son’s abduction and also that Jon and his wife Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Hersh’s parents, had passionately addressed the Democratic Party Convention in the US last month.
“I was concerned for all of the hostages, but when I realised I’d had a connection with the father, that turned out to be really, really sad,” he said.
“It just goes to show how small the Jewish world is and how affected we all are – how personally connected we are to everything that’s happening in Israel and to the Jewish people worldwide. We care, no matter what, but when you know [a family member], it hits home.”
US President Joe Biden described Jon and Rachel Goldberg-Polin as “relentless and irrepressible champions of their son and of all the hostages held in unconscionable conditions. I admire them and grieve with them more deeply than words can express.”
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