This is an updated version of a story first published on April 19, 2026. The original video can be viewed here. Since Hamas launched a terror attack on Israel, nearly three years ago, and the war in Gaza began, far too many mothers, Palestinian and Israeli, have lost children. This is one mother's story. Her name is Rachel Goldberg-Polin. She's an American Israeli who moved to Jerusalem eighteen years ago with her husband Jon, and their three children. Her only son, Hersh, was badly wounded and taken hostage by Hamas on October 7th. Rachel and Jon worked tirelessly to bring Hersh and the other hostages home, but on the 328th day of his captivity, Hersh was executed in a tunnel in Gaza. When we met her earlier this year, Rachel Goldberg-Polin told us that now, like so many others, she is trying to figure out how to live after her child has died.Rachel Goldberg-Polin: To know that your child is being tortured, tormented, starved, abused. He's maimed. And that's an excruciating form of suffering. And then what's so fascinating to me is that when they came to tell us that Hersh had been executed, then I realized that those 330 days had been the good part, because he was alive. And now I'm in this place and this is the rest of my life. How do I walk through this place without a piece of me here?Anderson Cooper: Have you figured that out yet?Rachel Goldberg-Polin: I'm trying to reunderstand what it means to be in this world. There are millions of us right now who have buried children. There's nothing unique about me. But it creates light for me to try to give words to the pain.Anderson Cooper: What was Hersh like?Rachel Goldberg-Polin: Easy.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin, whose son Hersh was abducted October 7 and murdered by Hamas: Grief is a "badge of love"
When Hamas abducted her son Hersh, Rachel Goldberg-Polin became the face of the hostage crisis in Israel. Since his murder, she says she has learned that the constant pain of grief is a "badge of love."
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