Chants of “Bring Them Home” echoed throughout the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday night as Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin took the stage with strips of masking tape over their hearts bearing the number 320, the number of days their 23-year-old son Hersh has been held in Gaza.
The arena rose to their feet as Rachel and Jon took the stake and stood silently as they spoke.
Photos of Hersh and the seven other American hostages shone overhead on the main screens.
“Like Kamala Harris, Hersh was born in Oakland, California,” Rachel said. “Hersh is a happy-go-lucky, laid-back, good-humored, respectful, and curious person. He is a civilian.”
Hersh was kidnapped from the Nova music festival, where he went with his best friend to celebrate his birthday.
Rachel said Hersh’s left forearm, his dominant arm, was blown off before he was loaded onto a pickup truck and “stolen from his life, and me and John, into Gaza.”
A call to bring them home
“And that was 320 days ago,” she said.
“This is a political convention,” Jon said. “But needing our son and all the hostages home is not a political issue. It is a humanitarian issue.”
The families of the eight American hostages meet every few weeks in Washington and are heartened by the bipartisan support in Congress for the hostages’ release.
The group of American hostage families have met with President Biden and Vice President Harris numerous times at the White House and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan more than a dozen.
Jon said Biden and Harris are both working tirelessly for a ceasefire deal that will “bring home our precious mothers, fathers, spouses and grandparents and grandchildren home and will stop the despair in Gaza.”
The crowd inside the arena erupted into applause at both lines.
“There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East,” Jon said. “And in a competition of pain, there are no winners.”
In an inflamed Middle East, Jon said the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region is a deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza.
Rachel, ending her speech as she’s ended many over the past 320 days, called out directly to her son.
A message to her son held in Hamas captivity
“Hersh, Hersh, if you can hear us, we love you,” she said. “Stay strong, survive.”
Liz Hirsh Naftali, the great aunt of four-year-old Abigail Mor Edan, who was taken hostage on October 7 and released 50 days later, stood behind the stage in tears as Rachel and Jon addressed the crowd.
“The room was silent. It was like you could hear a needle drop as they spoke,” Naftali told The Post from the DNC. “It was stunning.”
Cameras panned across the arena, and Naftali said there was a man listening to Rachel and Jon with his hands in prayer and a tear in his eye.
“It was just beautiful,” she added. “I think that what we learned about ourselves was that there’s a lot of people who really love and care, and this touched their hearts.”
She said Rachel and Jon got off stage understanding and feeling the love of the 20k people in the arena.
Naftali said the American hostage families were concerned the crowd would not understand “the love and the humanity.”
An audience in awe
“The entire arena was so beautiful and so taking in every word that they had crafted. It was heartwarming, and it reminded us all that this is a humanitarian crisis,” she said. “These are eight Americans and 111 people whose lives were just taken to Gaza. People understand the cruelty, and they understand they need to come home.”
After Ronen and Orna Neutra, parents of 22-year-old hostage Omer Neutra, addressed the Republican National Convention last month, Naftali described Rachel and Jon’s remarks as a completion of the American families’ bipartisan efforts.
“The goal is for people who, and I’m going to say this very clearly, need to make a deal to bring these hostages home,” Naftali said. “This is something that the American people, both the Republicans and the Democrats, all agree must happen.”
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