RICHMOND, Va. -- The emotions since Sunday have been difficult to encapsulate in words for Roberta Oster and Lizzie Druker-Basch.
The Israeli military confirmed Hersh Goldberg-Polin — who was abducted by Hamas militants during the October 7 attacks on Israel last year — was one of six hostages found dead in Gaza.
For several years during his childhood before moving to Israel, Goldberg-Polin and his family called Richmond home and were active in Richmond's Jewish community.
“I feel torn apart, I’m really torn apart," Oster said.
"My heart feels like a brick, and there are no words," Druker-Basch said.
Goldberg-Polin was 23 years old when he was taken. Both women said he played with their children when they were young and they remained in contact over the years.
"I just remember him as a joyful, funny, smart guy. He memorized all the presidents; He had a photographic memory, and he loved to play games," Oster said. "Hersh had a kind of wittiness and wisdom and sense of humor that people really were captivated by."
Oster and her family visited the Goldberg-Polin family a few years ago.
She said Hersh spoke of his time serving in the IDF as a difficult period.
"He wanted peace, and so for him to be captured by terrorists who don't want peace and who want to destroy Israel was hard," Oster said.
Similarly, Druker-Basch spent time with the Goldberg-Polin family in Israel a few years ago.
Goldberg-Polin's parents — Jon and Rachel — garnered international attention for their relentless efforts to push world leaders to broker a peace deal and bring home hostages.
"I think that what Rachel and John have done is unbelievable, and I think where most parents would have become paralyzed and incapable of moving forward, they were heroes. What they did in bringing Hersh to the world so people who didn't even know him before October of 2023 felt he was real to them," she said.
"I think it's time for people, especially the people who were touched by their family and their story, to speak out and to join in and to say — not yell in the streets and not call names — but speak out and to say that it's time for peace," Druker-Basch continued.
During a speech at the United Nations a few weeks after the October 7 attacks, Rachel Goldberg-Polin read a poem she wrote and titled, 'One Tiny Seed: A Poem for a Woman in Gaza.’
Oster read it at a service honoring Goldberg-Polin Monday night and said the words show the power of the family's message in this moment of war and strife around the world.
“She has also been crying, all those tears, a sea of tears they all taste the same," Oster said while reading from the poem.
“[Rachel Goldberg-Polin] was crying out for the mothers in Gaza, just as she was crying out for the hostages and to have that kind of humanity and empathy when your child is imprisoned in hell is unreal," Oster said.
Both women said the Jewish community in Richmond is hurting right now, and they are hopeful people of all faith traditions will pay attention to how the Goldberg-Polin family handled their part of a horrific situation.
"It's like we've lost one of our own sons, and I say that of every Jewish person in the Richmond community, and I know that most people here do not see us as genocidal, or that we wish for anything less than peace," said Druker-Basch. "I think we have to stop the yelling in the street, and we have to all come and sit down at the table and figure this out because everyone is suffering and that's got to stop."
“This is one of their hometowns, and I would like to see what we can do as a community to support efforts for peace, not just talk about it, not just have meetings, but actually speak up," Oster said.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was laid to rest Monday in Jerusalem.
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