Rachel Goldberg-Polin represented the victims of terrorism in the Middle East at the United Nations in honor of the International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism.
“My name is Rachel,” the mother of murdered Gaza hostage, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, told the UN on Friday, adding that she would always be “the mother of Hersh Goldberg-Polin.”
Her remarks, delivered in the form of a recorded video, sought to draw attention to Israeli victims of terrorism, with Rachel sharing the story of her son Hersh, who first lost his arm when Hamas terrorists kidnapped him on October 7.
“Hersh will always be my only son,” she said. “Hersh will always be my eldest child, and Hersh will always be 23 years old.”
Goldberg-Polin is the first Israeli representative in this role, which has been given to Palestinians in recent years, with her testimony shown alongside those of other terror victims from around the world.
The UN event, held annually on August 21, was established by the UN General Assembly in a 2017 resolution “to honor and support the victims and survivors of terrorism and to promote and protect the full enjoyment of their human rights and fundamental freedoms,” according to the UN’s website.
Hersh's experience at the hands of Hamas
Goldberg-Polin described the experiences of her late son at the hands of Hamas, as well as her experience as his mother amid his kidnapping, hostage status, and eventual murder.
“My son was executed at close range and returned to me after 330 days,” Goldberg-Polin said. “That body ... I had carried in my body for nine months, many moons ago ... that body and soul that I had adored and beheld.”
She then discussed the 1932 League of Nations exchange between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud on the topic of why humans wage war with one another.
“Freud explained that we humans continue to engage in active conflict even though the vast majority of us suffer terribly from this way of existence,” she said.
“Civilization has to decide whether to rise to the challenge to continually contain our natural tendencies toward war,” Goldberg-Polin continued, referring to Freud’s remarks.
“What Freud was inherently saying was that there are people on both sides of any conflict whose drive toward destruction of the other is exactly the same and therefore, ironically, those destructive entities on opposing sides, in fact, have more in common with each other than the very people they claim to represent,” she said.
The same was true, according to Freud, for the victims of war, whose motivations were “hope, life, love,” Goldberg-Polin said.
A blessing and a warning to the world
Conveying “a blessing and a warning” to the listeners, Goldberg-Polin said that she was praying that human civilization would use its “wisdom, strength, and might to do what is right.”
“The choice is hard, but the choice is ours,” she said. “Shall we take the easy way out and follow blindly, even as we march ourselves right over a cliff? Or shall we push ourselves to live up to the most elevated challenges and goals that are presented?”
Goldberg-Polin’s role at the UN event marked a significant step for Israel in its efforts to ensure proper international recognition for Israeli terror victims, including those of the October 7 massacre.
The Permanent Representative of Israel to the United Nations, Danny Danon, commented on what he said he saw as the significance of Goldberg-Polin’s remarks and her role at the UN event, saying that Israel “will continue working to ensure that Israeli victims of terrorism are given the recognition they deserve at the UN and that their stories are never forgotten.”