RICHMOND, Va. — Members of the Jewish community and Gov. Glenn Youngkin gathered to remember Hersh Goldberg-Polin on Tuesday.
Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Richmond-based Israeli-American man, was one of more than 250 people taken hostage by Hamas after an attack on a music festival in Israel in October 2023. His family, who attended Tuesday's memorial remotely, later confirmed his death.
"It touches us so deeply. This is a huge honor and recognition and a really apt memorial for Hersh," his parents said.
CBS 6 spoke to people who knew him about the impact he left.
“We’re just trying to, I guess, keep his memory alive," Rabbi Elisha Paul, head of Rudlin Torah Academy, said. "He was here form Kindergarten to about the third grade. Even at that age he was very very athletic, very bubbly. Strong-minded, strong-willed."
Gov. Youngkin said that Goldberg-Polin, despite being one of the hundreds attacked during the music festival in Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, protected others during the attack by Hamas.
"He was also someone who courageously defied the design of his attackers, picking up grenades that had been lobbed at him and his friends and throwing them out of the way of innocent civilians and back towards the terrorist who were attacking," Youngkin said.
Goldberg-Polin lost his arm in the attack and was taken hostage and later killed. His death was an imaginable loss for the community. Tuesday, the gym at Rudlin Torah Academy was dedicated and renamed in his honor.
"By the authority vested by the Commonwealth, the Governor of the State of Virginia does hereby officially recognize a day of remembrance for the victims of Oct. 7," Youngkin said.
The gym at the Rudlin Torah Academy will be renovated in Goldberg-Polin's honor in the coming months.
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