Courage in the Face of Absurdity

(Photo: Ahmad Gharabli/Getty Images)

It takes tremendous courage to keep your head high, your mind clear, and your emotions in check as forces entirely outside of your control make fateful decisions about your life and that of your family. 

Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin—the parents of 23-year old American-Israeli citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin who was held hostage for months and recently killed by Hamas—showed the world this courage over the past year.

Unlike others who know their family closely, I only met Rachel and Jon once, in May, shortly after Iran attacked Israel with hundreds of drones and missiles, in a small meeting with other national security and domestic policy experts in Jerusalem. It was awkward at first, talking political shop with two parents obviously in grief and constantly worried about the abduction of their son and others by a gang of murderous thugs. 

I have a son born two months before Hersh, and a daughter born about a year later. I thought to myself, why are these two lovely parents facing such personal hardship talking with a small group of Americans right now? What can any of us possibly offer these good people to help their efforts to get their son and all the remaining hostages home safely? How weird is it to game out the thinking of people like Yahya Sinwar, Benjamin Netanyahu, Joe Biden, and countless other international actors seeking to shape the Israel-Hamas war and hostage situation when their son is sitting scared and alone in a tunnel in Gaza?

Yet it wasn’t strange to discuss these topics at that time because Rachel and Jon were willing to try any practical approach, push on any diplomatic pressure point, and talk with any political or journalistic figure, big or small, who could possibly help them get Hersh and the other hostages back safely. 

The rest of us say things like, “I would do anything for my kids,” and it’s mostly true within the confines of things we can control ourselves. But what about parents like Rachel and Jon who find themselves and their son entirely at the mercy of outside forces? Most of us never face a situation remotely like theirs. One day your child is enjoying himself with friends at a concert in the desert. The next day his friends have been killed, and he’s been hurt and taken by terrorists to spend months below ground as a bargaining chip for zealots and scumbags. You can’t go get him obviously and must rely on the Israeli government and military—along with the U.S. president, top diplomats, and intelligence officials plus foreign cutouts for Hamas—to figure out if and how you might get him back. 

Everyone involved has a different goal than your singular focus on rescuing your son. 

How do you convince these political powers to make your son and others a priority? How do you get two leaders with maximalist strategic goals—survival and continued rule for Sinwar and total victory for Netanyahu—to come down from these positions a bit and temporarily accept less than optimal outcomes that allow for the return of your son and others in exchange for people and demands from the other side? How do you change the status quo in Gaza when the U.S. president and others with far more legal and military authority than you are unable to craft a temporary resolution that both sides will accept?

You can’t do it on your own, that’s the problem. 

That’s why Hersh’s parents sought every “proverbial stone” they could turn over, in Jon’s words, to create a path different than the devastating one that concluded this past weekend. They turned their “sweet boy” Hersh, in Rachel’s words, into the face of the larger hostage crisis caused by the immoral actions of Hamas on October 7. They talked with just about anyone, anywhere, at any time over the past year to tell their story and help create diplomatic movement towards the release of Hersh and hundreds more. They made sure that world leaders could not ignore their son and other hostages despite having little power themselves to alter events. They never gave up hope and focused their anguish on trying to create a viable path out for their son and other innocent victims facing grave danger due to terrorism, war, and larger geopolitics.

In the end, it didn’t work. But Rachel and Jon didn’t fail as they tearfully said at Hersh’s funeral on Monday—and it’s not their fault. Hamas killed their son along with five other hostages and thousands of others on October 7. And Israeli President Isaac Herzog took responsibility for the government’s handling of the hostage situation saying, “I apologize on behalf of the State of Israel, that we failed to protect you in the terrible disaster of October 7, that we failed to bring you home safely,” and he pledged “to save those who can still be saved” while holding Hamas accountable for its “savagery” and “crimes against humanity.”

Rachel and Jon did their best as parents and citizens showing true courage in the face of an absurd and heart-wrenching situation beyond their control—a valuable moral example for all sides as this war drags on.