Episode Details

In this episode of Jewish Crossroads, Tamar Ish Shalom sits down with Jon Polin, a man who never sought the public eye, but was thrust into it by unimaginable circumstances.

Together with his wife, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, Jon became one of the most recognizable voices of the hostage crisis after their son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, was kidnapped on October 7 and held in Gaza by Hamas for 328 days. Over that time, they carried his story across continents and audiences, becoming for many the human face of a national trauma.

Even after Hersh was murdered and laid to rest in Israel, their role did not end. Jon continues to speak with a rare combination of moral clarity and compassion, resisting the pull toward hatred while refusing to look away from the hardest questions.

Now in the United States alongside Rachel’s new book, When We See You Again, they reflect on grief, love, and the enduring fight to bring the remaining hostages home.

In a conversation that moves between the personal and the political, they ask what it means to hold onto humanity in the face of loss. How does one live with such absence? And what does moral responsibility demand in a moment that resists easy answers?

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