Rachel Goldberg-Polin, the mother of a hostage murdered in Gaza, was selected on Monday to feature in USA Today’s “2026 Women of the Year” list, in which she recounted how her personal grief is touching tens of thousands of strangers worldwide.
“I’m trying very hard to own and greet the grief that I feel every single day, in a way of actually thinking of it as a privilege. I had this beautiful son. He was and he is a blessing,” she wrote.
Her son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, was held hostage by Hamas for 328 days in underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip, in the wake of his abduction from the Supernova music festival in the western Negev on Oct. 7, 2023.
The Israeli-American captive was executed by gunfire at close range in a Rafah tunnel in southern Gaza in August 2024.
“I’m still very much this symbol of pain and a trigger for a lot of people’s trauma,” his mother told the newspaper.
She related that her story has touched thousands of people from all over the world, who contact her to express their condolences and to also share their own accounts of loss.
Goldberg-Polin said that she has received 84,000 or so messages in formats such as Facebook, WhatsApp and email.
“Some days it’s 93, some days it’s 112. But it’s always hovering right around 100,” the grieving mother was quoted as saying.
“It’s very affirming that it is pain that is so universal. It’s really symbiotic because I think that they think they’re reaching out for help, and they’re actually really helping me. So, there’s this wave-like experience where we meet in the middle,” Goldberg-Polin said.
