Proof of Life - with Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin
After over 200 days, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin saw proof of life of their son Hersh Goldberg-Polin for the first time, who was severely wounded in the October 7th massacre and taken hostage by Hamas.
On April 24th, a video surfaced — which was produced by Hamas — of Hersh speaking to camera. In short, in the video, Hersh describes that he was taken hostage, he criticizes the Israeli Government, and he expresses love for his parents, Jon and Rachel and his two sisters. He addresses his severe wound from October 7th, in which his left hand — his dominant hand — was blown off.
When I was in Israel, I visited with Rachel and Jon and we recorded a conversation for this podcast about the video, as well as what else they had learned from it, especially about Hersh’s severe wound — he continues to be medically fragile. Jon and Rachel discussed why they decided to approve media release and coverage of the video. Rachel and Jon also reacted to the shocking protests on US campuses — they are both from the US, as is Hersh, and they reflected on what they regarded as some encouraging news about a statement on the hostages, which was signed by 18 countries. They also addressed the possibility of Israeli elections in the midst of this ongoing hostage crisis and war.
Follow “Bring Hersh Home” on Instagram: bring.hersh.home
Hersh Goldberg Polin video: https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/hostage-hersh-goldberg-polins-family-approves-publication-of-hamas-propaganda-video/
Column by William McGurn of the WSJ: “Hamas’s American Hostages”
Transcript
DISCLAIMER: THIS TRANSCRIPT HAS BEEN CREATED USING AI TECHNOLOGY AND MAY NOT REFLECT 100% ACCURACY.
RG: I'm talking to you now and I look like a normal person, but I have a branding iron searing into my back. You know, normal trauma, normative trauma is that the truck hits you out of nowhere from behind. You didn't see it coming. You've, you're now on the side of the road with every bone in your body broken. The truck has driven off like, and you have to figure out when am I going to be okay to sit up? When am I going to be okay to try to stamp? What we are dealing with is the truck is still on us. It's, holy cow, I really hope that I don't move just slightly the wrong way and die.
DS: It is midnight on Tuesday, May 1st here in New York City. It is 7 a.m. on May 1st in Israel as Israelis get ready to start their day. After over 200 days, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin saw proof of life of their son, Hersh Goldberg Polin, who was severely wounded in the October 7th massacre and taken hostage by Hamas. Just last Wednesday, a video surfaced in the Israeli press, a video produced by Hamas, of Hersh speaking to camera. We will link to the video in the show notes. In short, though, in the video, Hersh describes the day he was taken hostage. He criticizes the Israeli government, and he expresses love for his parents, Jon and Rachel, and his two sisters. He addresses his severe wound from October 7th, in which his left hand, his dominant hand, was blown off. When I was in Israel, I visited with Rachel and Jon and we recorded a conversation for this podcast about this hostage video and what Rachel and Jon had learned from it, especially about Hersh's severe wound. He continues to be medically fragile. Jon and Rachel discussed why they decided to approve media release and coverage of this video. Rachel and Jon also reacted to the shocking protests we are seeing today on U.S. campuses. Jon and Rachel are both originally from the U.S. and continue to be U.S. citizens, as is Hersh, and they reflected on what they regarded as some encouraging news about a statement on the hostages, which was signed by 18 countries, and they also addressed the possibility of Israeli elections, in the midst of this ongoing hostage crisis and war and trauma that they are living. Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin on Proof of Life. This is Call Me Back.
And I'm here with Rachel and Jon together in Israel. I just want to start with the video that we just saw of Hersh that was released on Wednesday. That is the first video you have seen in 200 plus days. Can you describe how that happened from your perspective?
JP: Sure. So Wednesday afternoon, it must have been 3:30 ish. I got a call from a representative from the US and two representatives from Israel, all three that we've been in touch with before. And they said that we know a video is going to be released shortly on telegram. We haven't seen it, but it's coming out and we're giving you the heads up. So that's how we knew. Rachel and I were not together. I was in an office, she was at home. As soon as I got that call, I went home and we saw the video when it was posted on telegram, with thousands of other people seeing it. You mentioned approval to release it, within minutes of seeing it, we were contacted by lots of people. People around the world, lots of media, and we were asked for approval to release it to the media. We asked for approval fom different media organizations. It was already running virally on the internet. But media organizations asked for approval to release it. We discussed it among ourselves for a total of probably seven seconds and gave approval to release it.
DS: But there have been some situations where families have had access to videos and they haven't released it. You said it took you seven seconds. Why was it a no brainer?
RG: Well, the truth is initially, as soon as it was released, we started to get thousands of people writing on Instagram, on Facebook, on, you know, WhatsApp writing to us because thousands of people had seen it. And so immediately my understanding was, millions of people have seen this video on Telegram. And then we started getting bombarded and our team was, you know, at our house and one of the team members was on the phone with a news outlet and said, Rachel, channel so and so wants to know if they can use a clip tonight in the news. And without even checking with Jon, I just said yeah. Like first of all, I didn't understand that, it was what, how am I giving permission? It's not my video. I didn't really think about it and I felt like it's out there millions of people are seeing it, but Jon thought about it and thought, I mean, share, what you said to me.
JP: My immediate thought was, these are human beings. This was Hersh. But there are 133 Hershs there. And it was super important from my perspective that the world and, that's whoever sees it, it's leaders of the world, it's people sitting around the negotiating table. We families of hostages never need reminders that our loved ones are in captivity, but we sometimes feel that there is a numbness in the world. People talk about a number, 133 - and we sometimes believe that even those are on the negotiating table are thinking in ambiguous terms about a number, and it was super important to put an additional human face on this, and that was really the thinking is whatever it is that he's even saying, it's important that people see a real person, 200 plus days into captivity, sharing whatever it is that he ended up sharing the video.
RG: Well, and also very much physically, you know, there's a real before and after with Hersh. I mean, he did not look recognized. Obviously. I know. I mean, he's my child. So I knew immediately that it was him. One of the news outlets put a before and after, you know, put a picture of him from a few days before October 7th. And then the picture from a few days ago, I mean, he looks like two different people. And as I've said consistently, I mean, Hersh is this like laidback, easygoing… I've never seen him mad. And also he was speaking in Hebrew, which is not the language that we speak with him.
DS: You guys communicate in English at home?
RG: Only in English. So I wasn't really listening to the content. I was listening to my child's voice for the first time in 201 days. And I was watching him move for the first time in 201 days. And I do think that there was something also very important to see this person who I've never heard his voice be like that. You know, he's very animated and I think that that was important. I don't know who wrote what he said. I don't know how many takes it took to get that performance. I have no idea. But I do think that there's also an importance to that to show this isn't who we know. And that's also really important. These people are suffering in captivity. And it's important to see that.
DS: You won't remember this but I saw you both, it was probably within two weeks…
RG: Night 17.
DS: Wow.
RG: We go by a day.
DS: Okay. So it's night 17 in new york city.
RG: Yes.
JP: We then subsequently saw you in Tel Aviv, right?
DS: But on night 17 in New York City, and this was the event that Senator Cohen and some others had put together, you were all describing his what was his injury from October 7th, and you knew from that video that he had lost his left hand and you had showed video of that to doctors who said it's actually fixable. There's nothing decisive about that injury, it can be treated. And so it's the first thing I focused on when I watched the video. I went right to, I just went right and said, what's going on with the hand and was it treated?
JP: The follow on to night 17, because at that point we, it was still super early, is soon after that, actually it was, it was still many weeks because it was the first release. So days 49, 50, 51, as people got released, that we started to hear instances of people who had been in captivity were released and they shared stories about actually having surgery performed on themselves by veterinarians. And it was then that we started to get messages from veterinarians around the world saying, “Don't worry. If a veterinarian performed surgery on Hersh, you could rest okay, because amputations are the most similar surgeries there are between animals and humans.”
RG: Although I will say that people have told us that in terms of how you treat for a prosthetic, you really need as soon as possible after the amputation to start to do certain therapies and rehabilitation so that the nerve endings stay active so that they can take a prosthetic and then work properly. And the longer that you wait, the more likely that a prosthetic is not going to really function the way that it could.
DS: My sister Wendy told me that over Hanukkah, your community in Jerusalem got together at the Tayelet, the promenade, for our listeners who aren't Jewish or haven't been to Israel: It's this beautiful overlook in Jerusalem. And she said it was cold, it was rainy. She just described, in a community of like 200 people from your congregation, from your synagogue, to pray with you. And she wasn't there, but she told me that the community gathered again over Pesach for morning prayers for Hallel. I guess it wasn't the same spot, it was at the what it was Jerusalem's version of Hasheh Square for prayers during Chol HaMoed during the few days between the beginning of the end of Pesach and she had just heard that it was the whole feel of it was because this was I think within hours of the video being released and that that's sort of the contrast between praying over Hanukkah in the rainy cold, overlooking the Tayelet, and then within 12 hours this community rallies and they're praying with you. I guess is that reflective of… I'm just trying to get sort of a statement of the obvious, and yet like what this video meant for this trauma and journey you're living through?
JP: I'll say a few things about it. First of all, the cold, rainy, Tayelet night that Wendy is talking about was night 100, the end of day 100, which was a long taxing day emotionally, and we were out in the cold talking in Jerusalem and doing a bunch of events, and it was a really, I think strengthening, heartwarming night. And subsequently we've had three or four community gatherings of song and prayer. And we're on this journey where we never know what it is that's working, what it is that's going to get us closer to the goal of bringing home Hersh from the hostages. But what I could say for sure is I at least find those kinds of gatherings to be really, really, really, really, really, really strengthening, heartwarming, I think it's a combination of community, of song, of prayer, and I just appreciate so much that we have hundreds and hundreds of people in our community who show up consistently every one of those events. The one on Thursday morning, we didn't make it to that one either this past week. The video came out on Wednesday. And there was a ton of emotion for us and for our community to see this video. And within hours, somebody just impromptu put out a notice. We had nothing to do with it. Put out a notice saying, let's get together for prayer for Tevilah tomorrow morning. And we couldn't make it, but even seeing pictures in the videos and just watching somebody do a pan of the audience, the crowd, is it's going from front to middle to back and seeing the throngs of people there and singing. That stuff is so important. So thank you to everybody who's been at any or all of those. I hope we won't need many more, but, um, thank you.
RG: And it's a form of activism. That's the thing, is that there's so many different voices here and every family has had to find their voice, and our voice, a lot of it is found in coming together in prayer. And you don't have to be a religious person to do that. It's just a form of being out there together and doing something that's not violent, not screaming -
DS: - and they're not alone.
RG: There's times for that, but it's everyone's coming together. It's inexplicable. It is helpful. I don't know why.
JP: I think the real contrast is the 12 hours from Wednesday night to Thursday morning. Wednesday night after the video came out, there were people who took to the streets in Jerusalem. We have always told our friends and our family that we are for a deal that releases the hostages. We are not out screaming against any individuals or against the government. We are for the hostage release and we have kind of distanced ourselves from any of the anti government stuff that's happening. I don't even know what happened on Wednesday night, but there were people out in Jerusalem mostly in favor of pushing for a hostage release. Some chance started around anti government and there was some spillover and I still don't know, but the police were involved, and it was, it was heated and messy. And I think the real contrast is that to six or eight hours later, being gathered in what looked like such a serene, calm, intentional, emotional group prayer the following morning that is really, just in the videos and the pictures, I've seen something so striking.
DS: Speaking of not being alone, other news made this past week, which was, which I haven't seen since October 7th, which was 18 nations put out a joint statement, by the way, you're hard pressed these days to get 18 countries, especially that diverse number of countries, 18 countries put out a joint statement calling for the release of the hostages. And I know Jon, you were involved with this and I want to ask you, much like why it was important for you to make sure that video found the international audience, why it was also important for these 18 countries to come out and speak with one voice.
JP: Yeah, so I'll hone in on the specific statement and what brought it about and then we can pan out and maybe Rachel will speak to the importance of it from a 30,000 foot level. We were in the United States two and a half weeks ago in various meetings with folks in the U.S. administration and in Congress and in a meeting with some folks in the administration, the group of us, a group of American families said, it feels like the United States has been supportive of the hostage families from day one, but there are hostages from 25 countries. Where are all of those countries, and wouldn't it be more powerful if we got more voices not working behind the scenes quietly, but publicly coming together and putting out a statement and the government folks that were in the room said, Oh, that's a really good idea. Let us work on that. And you mentioned how hard it is to get any kind of statement signed on. I guess this is a glass half full, glass half empty, right? Part of me is like, why did it take almost two and a half weeks to get them to sign a statement that seems pretty obvious? On the other hand, I'm fully able to appreciate and realize what it takes to get people, world leaders, to sign on anything, let alone a statement like this and maybe getting it done in just over two weeks is record time.
But it was basically most of the countries who have citizens being held coming together and saying, we must get these people out of captivity. And it was broader than that, but that was the basic gist of the statement. And it was so important because it finally just brings together a much more international voice because these hostages are not what people in the world tend to think that they are.
RG: Because I've from the get go had a huge battle cry of trying to explain to the world that the hostage cohort is not a monolithic homogenous group. It is an extremely diverse group of people. And of the 133 that are left still in captivity, they represent 25 different nations. They are Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Muslims, and Hindus. And they range in age, as you know, from 15 months to 86 years old. And I have thought that it is ridiculous that people think that this is just one brand of human being. So I have consistently been saying, Where is the world? This is a global humanitarian crisis in the micro - step up for your people. I think it's a huge win that President Biden was able to in, and I actually think it was very fast. I think in two and a half weeks to get 17 countries to agree to language and syntax and just -
DS: On an issue that's incredibly divisive, this is not like climate change.
RG: Although it's not even really divisive. It's get these human beings out of captivity, period. And frankly, I think that what would be more powerful is to say, I, all the more so would like for you to sign because you don't have someone from your country here. I think we should be going to now, I don't know how to do math like this, and I don't even know how many countries there are in the world, but to go to the, uh, Take away those 17 and now try to get someone to sign on, you know, that they don't have someone there I would also turn to the interfaith community and say, where are you? Where are all the leaders of Christian communities, of Jewish communities of Muslim communities of Hindu communities of Buddhist communities. You have people there - This is what I want to say. You very rarely hear, we have eight U. S. Americans and some people know about it. I'm not saying greats that they're there, but like people are aware there's the U.S. eight. I very rarely hear people talk about the eight Muslim Arabs who are being held. I rarely hear people talk about the seven Thai Buddhists who are being held. We have Nepalese, we have Mexicans, we have Catholics being held. Where is the interfaith community?
JP: There are more Argentinians being held than Americans. There are eight Americans and nine Argentinians. And nobody's talking about that.
RG: It almost feels that there's some intentional reason that that's not being shouted.
JP: I don't think it's being discussed at Columbia, Northwestern, or any other campus nowadays.
RG: And you know, we became actually close with one of the Muslim Arab family members and he's lovely, you know, I don't want to do anything that would hurt him or his family. So I, I'm not going to say his name, but we spent a lot of time with him and it feels like an injustice that his family members are being erased when there is this kind of shouting and there is not advocacy for his family members.
DS: Lucy Arash, you know, she delivered that powerful statement within days of October 7th, I think, speaking to this: On the Americans. I take your point that the American hostages are more well known in the U. S. William McGurn, who's a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, wrote this piece. He called it Hamas's American hostages. And he said they should be household names in America, the way Brittany Griner wrote it. was a household name, or is a household name, the way Evan Gershkovitz is a household name. These hostages should be household names, and they're not. I know Hersh is Israeli, and I know you have raised him for most of his life in Israeli, but you are also very American. And he is very American. And can you just spend a minute on the, just sort of your American roots and your, I want to try and put a spotlight for Americans on, there are Americans being held hostage, just like there were Americans, like the two names I mentioned that were being held and people were outraged.
RG: You know, Jon and I were both born and raised in Chicago. Hersh was born in Berkeley, California, as was his sister Libby. And then we moved to Richmond, Virginia when he was about four, and we lived in Richmond, Virginia until the summer before his eighth birthday. All of our family, you know, Hersh's grandparents are all in America. Jon's dad passed away a few years ago, but my dad, my mom, Jon's mom, all the aunts, uncles, extended family, all my family is in America. All of Jon's extended family. I mean, the second cousins - everyone is there. We moved to Israel. We were almost 40 years old. So I mean, Jon and I are steeped in American life. Culturally, we are very American. We still pay taxes in both Illinois and Virginia. We vote in Virginia. Hersh votes in Virginia. You know, our ethos and our orientation to the world and our sort of worldview is very much from that lens of having grown up in the United States and lived in the United States until we were, I mean, is it considered middle aged? No. It's like older, younger age, if you're almost 40, I don't know. But our home is an English speaking home. And we were always, you know, when we could would go see our family in America, Hersh has always been more comfortable reading in English. He's a voracious reader, but his language of choice by far is English, much more comfortable in English.
DS: So given your connection to American life, and we talked about this briefly before we were recording. I just got here a few days ago. I left a pretty wild scene in the U.S. where college campus after college campus, it's jarring. The rhetoric that's being used, the toxicity of the debate. We were talking before about Maya Roman, who's been very active on on behalf of two hostages, one that was released in the last deal and one that's still being held, uh, Carmel, and she said she, I'd seen her that day, she'd gone to Columbia University, this was weeks ago, this is on the sixth month anniversary, and she talked about this in our podcast conversation I had with her, and she said she wanted to meet these students who were saying some of these incendiary things, and she said, I have relatives who are, one who was held hostage, one who's still being hostage, and I just, and she just wanted to engage them. And they made some comment like, I'm sorry, but the hostages or the plight of the hostages just aren't relevant to what we're protesting. So I'm outraged by what's happening. You're living something entirely different and unimaginable. But when you see that debate, what's your reaction to it?
JP: Well, I'll tell you, my first reaction to it is sadness. I went to university in America, and it was some of the best years of my life. And I would go to lecturers, political lecturers, we'd hear the speaker speak, and we'd agree, we'd disagree. It was kind of carefree. I never feared, certainly not for my life. And so just the level of toxicity, it makes me sad for students. I feel terrible for students who are stressed. About the wrong things in college. That is not what it should be about. So number one is sadness and then I think nuance has kind of disappeared from our dialogue in the world nowadays, and we could talk about all the things that people blame it on - Is it social media? All kinds of causes? It's disturbing to just see people trying to turn an issue into something that is so black and white, right and wrong, when I think it's okay to be critical. I say you can be critical of Israel, the same way I say we anybody can be critical of any country. No country is perfect So if you want to be critical of certain policies of Israel's that's fine. How that just gets flipped into - Hostages don't matter. And for Americans to say, American hostages don't matter. Like, one of the things that's been encouraging to us is, we meet politicians from the, both sides of the aisle, across the spectrum, and what they've been saying to us is, this is not an issue of Republican or Democrat, this is an issue of, we don't like hostages being held. And to see that that kind of comment can't be made on a college campus today. It's just something that I'm struggling to grasp. We've become a little bit known as a result of being voices for Hersh. We get asked about all kinds of issues.
DS: Most of which are probably wise to not comment on.
JP: We're focused on one issue. We're focused on the issue of bring home Hersh from the hostages. That being said, I can't avoid the news. Rachel mostly does and I fill her in on the important things and I fill her in a little bit about what's going on in college campuses. Yeah.
RG: Because you know what? I'm in trauma. Right. I'm in ambiguous, ongoing, continual, angst filled dread at all times. I'm talking to you now, and I look like a normal person, but I have a branding iron searing into my back. So we are in this position, which I've discussed before that, you know, normal trauma, normative trauma is that the truck hits you out of nowhere from behind. You didn't see it coming. You've, you're now on the side of the road with every bone in your body broken. The truck has driven off like, and you have to figure out when am I going to be okay to sit up? When am I going to be okay to try to stand? When am I going to try to, you know, the metaphorical truck is, you know, A loved one suddenly dies, you know, someone comes home and says, honey, I want a divorce. You didn't see it coming. That child tells you something that rocks your entire orientation to how you thought things were going to proceed. That's normative trauma. What we are dealing with is the truck is still on us. And so we are just trying not to move in such a way that our rib cage caves in and the truck kills us. So people have asked us, you know, about, oh my gosh, this crazy rhetoric on campuses, or would you speak on a zoom about antisemitism? I'm like, um, listen, I'm in the middle of being raped. I cannot help you. I can't help you. I need to deal with this. You know, and so my, our thing is saving Hersh and these other people.
DS: You have blinders on.
RG: Yeah. So I can't read the news and I can't dive or wade in even to, but what about yes, but there's no yes, but, when a truck is on your chest. It's, holy cow, I really hope that I don't move just slightly the wrong way and die. So I'm trapped under this truck. And so that's where my focus is, is, oh my gosh, don't move the wrong way and die. That's where I am. So I'm not reading the news. I'm not finding it. So Jon tells me things so that I don't sound like a complete idiot when, you know, I'm out in the world. But one thing I did want to touch on, on what you were saying about college campuses and what it's like, which I mentioned on day 18 at the UN, you know, Nick Kristof wrote this incredible article. I think it was released on October 13th. If I'm not mistaken, or the 12th. And he talked about this idea that if you are only upset when one side's babies die, it means that your moral compass is broken and your humanity is broken. And I've been really very much focused on noticing that our humanity is not broken. We are in the middle of an indescribable, unimaginable trauma. And yet, I am also aware that there are hundreds of thousands of innocent people suffering horribly in this trauma as well. In Gaza, there are innocent civilians suffering horribly in Gaza. And when I do see those images, it also breaks my heart. And I'm glad that it hurts me because it means I'm still a human. But what I'm also very aware of is that there is one innocent civilian in Gaza who I know very well and who I have the same DNA as and who I had in my body for nine months. And that's the one that is motivating me to try to bring an end to all the suffering that's happening in our region.
DS: Jon, you, so you follow the news, Rachel, you rightly steer clear. I'm not, I don't want to ask you about where we are, hostage deal, who, who knows? It's fluid, it's dynamic, but there's this debate, and I'm not asking you to be a political pundit at all, but there is this debate, and I get this question all the time back in the U.S., do you think there should be Israeli elections? How does this country move forward with the war, with hostage negotiations, with all these decisions that need to be made? Without elections and, uh, kind of a new mandate for the leadership of the country to deal with these issues, you're, I think, following these events, or at least you're not blocking them out. How do you process these? Because there's a debate going on within the country. By the way, I've been here the last week. It's everywhere I go. It's every conversation. People are on one side or the other of it.
JP: So. I'm not going to be a political pundit now, but I want to take a step back because of that question. It's something that I do think a lot about, which is let's back up before October 7th. There has been tremendous political instability in Israel, and I can't help but think there are so many things that I think are better about Israel than America. There are some things that I cannot get around, I think are just better in America. Some of which are the rules of governance, and two things in particular come to my mind. The first and most important one to your question is The notion of having declared dates of elections and making the people stick with their decisions, whether they like it or not. There's real merit to that, meaning I'm not pointing a finger at any individual person or party right now, but of course there are political considerations that are tremendously influencing hostage deal, no deal, war, no war, because there's fear that certain decisions could lead to the government falling apart. And that is a problem. The political instability before October 7th related to the judicial reform, which we're certainly not going to talk about now, other than to say, why was the judicial reform executed the way it was? Meaning with the speed and intensity, because the people who put it forth, this government, which is a new government may not be around long and we have a minimal window potentially that we got to be working in So we got to work fast and whatever people think about judicial reform, it's a problem with all of these critical decisions in humans’ lives Israelis’ lives, are being dictated for good or for bad by fragility, by the fact that every politician feels like today could be my last day in office because this government might fall apart. That is something that's concerning.
DS: I mean, just for our listeners who don't follow Israeli politics as closely as we do, or at least as Jon and I do these days, is Israel had like five elections in four years. I mean, it is like Italy or something where every, from year to year, you just don't know what government's going to be in power.
JP: If there's a government that I don't like at this point, I I want to give them some time because in some ways I feel like a bad government, at least from my perspective, might be better than no government and no stability. It's impossible to live this way, and we're seeing it right now in the fate of the hostages. Politics has clearly entered into this conversation, as you've seen in your time here for the last week, that should not be happening from the standpoint of politics. Meaning if we choose X, the government's going to fall. If we choose why the government might fall, people can't make decisions this way.
RG: And there's also, you always talk about term limits.
JP: I do. So that's a second point. That's probably less relevant here, but also important. And again, this isn't about any particular individual, even the one who's been in charge for most of the last 20 years.
DS: No, parliamentary systems in general don't have term limits. And, you know, Margaret Thatcher, iconic leader of the UK, she was ultimately, I'm a huge fan of Thatcher's, she was forced out of office because there were no limits. It just went on and on and on. And people, there was just fatigue and dysfunction.
JP: Dan, you, I'm sure, have founded the books and read them. They must exist. How much more productive and efficient second term presidents are than first term presidents? Because they could just go to work knowing that that's it. They don't have to be too worried about political considerations. I assume those books are out there. We just live in a perpetual state of despair.
DS: The idea of an election in the middle of all this is -
JP: So we have not been calling for elections. We always say, the families of 133 hostages are in deep despair, when somebody's in deep despair I don't think anybody could be critical of what they're saying and what they're doing. It's from a point of desperation. And so some people scream, some people operate quietly, some people call for elections, some people say elections are bad. Every family gets to do and say what they want. Personally, we want the hostages out as soon as possible. And it seems that going to an election cycle right now just means, inherently, time. The one thing hostages don't have. So that's been our driving thought in terms of not calling for elections. There's going to be a reckoning at some point soon, hopefully after 133 hostages are released. We'll see where the chips fall at that point. But, we want the hostages home today, and we don't care who delivers that for us. If it's Israel, if it's the United States, if it's Qatar, if it's Egypt, if it's this leader or that leader, we just want the outcome, and we think that elections delay that outcome.
DS: My last question, uh, before we wrap up. There are a lot of listeners to this podcast who are part of your virtual community, probably people you don't know. They are people who have attended rallies that you have spoken at. They are people who share clips of you when you're giving interviews. They are people who religiously follow and share the Bring Hersh Home Instagram account and content. There are people, as I was mentioning to you both earlier, at our, at our children's Jewish day school. There are children and teachers that wear the tape with the number of days that Hersh has been held hostage, inspired by you, Rachel. So I guess, in closing, What's your message for that community? Because I don't know who's going to hear this podcast, but I can guarantee you there's a lot of people who have been in your community and part of your virtual movement that will listen to it. So whatever you have to say to them.
RG: I mean, we have been blessed with those people and there's no way that we could have made it this far without those people, the love and support that we're getting. Thank God we have an incredible, beautiful, vibrant, dynamic, brilliant group surrounding us, community surrounding us where we live. And we have wonderful extended family, you know, who gives us love and support. And we have friends who give us love and support. But it is this wild group of people who we don't know who have shown up and check in. Every day, from around the world, people from the Jewish community, which, of course, feels like family, and what's been so unbelievably surprising, are the people who don't share a common tradition or heritage. People who are from all over the world who Jon always says, you know, we'll write to us and say, “Hi, I'm Maria. I'm in Venezuela, and I'm Catholic. And I love you. And I love Hersh. And I'm praying for you every day. And I do the rosary every day for him.” Christmas time, we've talked about it a lot that we got hundreds of thousands of pictures on Christmas Eve of people's Christmas dinner tables with an extra plate with Hersh's name, things like that. It's inexplicable that people have just decided that they're going to care about Hersh. And I don't understand how these things work, but I am telling you, we feel it. We need it. We appreciate it. We are grateful for it and we feel blessed. And I don't know more adequate words than thank you. So even though they're cheap words, sometimes I really mean it.
JP: Dan, I think we could do a whole podcast getting into some of the specific pictures, videos, stories that we hear all day every day that speak to what Rachel is describing. So we'll put that off and do it when Hersh and the hostages come home. But I want to take your question and just push it in a slightly different direction and speak to a different audience, which is the leaders of Israel and Hamas and the United States and Qatar and Egypt and anybody who might be operating more quietly in negotiating for the hostages. And that is, we've had teases over 204 days. Sometimes we've had doses of optimism and then it goes to pessimism. And I'm always careful because we say until the hostages all come home, we are not done. But right now it feels like there is a critical moment. First of all, there's urgency for us. It's seeing Hersh. For other people it's seeing Hersh. A new video they came out today with two more hostages and really understanding the human side of this story. But also on the other side it's things like the joint statement that we talked about like seeing the images of President Biden with Abigail, the now five year old who was in captivity and released on day 51, I believe, at the White House the other day.
DS: And lost her parents.
JP: And lost her parents and some other relatives. It feels like the conversations, based on everything I'm hearing and seeing and reading, are progressing. Parties are leaning in. And I just want to once again put out a plea, an encouragement, send strength, send bravery, send courage to all of these parties and say, now, is the time. Don't let this end in another set of disappointment. Bring this to closure. Get a deal done. We all need our loved ones home and this entire region needs to release pressure. There's so much going on here in the north with Hezbollah, with the Houthis, with Iran. And we really continue to believe and say that the closest in thing that can be executed to act as a pressure release in the region is: let's bring these hostages back home. Seize the moment.
DS: Thank you both.
RG: Thank you.
JP: Thank you, Dan.
DS: That's our show for today. To keep up with Jon and Rachel and their extraordinary work and advocacy on behalf of their son, you can go to instagram at bring dot hersh dot home. We'll also link to that in the show notes. Call Me Back is produced and edited by Ilan Benatar. Our media manager is Rebecca Strom. Additional editing by Martin Huergo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.