SKOKIE, Illinois — Several hundred people attended a dedication ceremony outside of Chicago on Wednesday for the first-ever kosher community fridge in the United States, launched in memory of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was killed in Hamas captivity two years ago.
Goldberg-Polin’s parents — both Chicagoland natives — attended the ceremony and spoke about how the project embodied their late son’s values.
“Hersh was an idealist who sought to make the world a better place in small ways, and he would do it without speaking about making the world better,” said Hersh’s father, Jon.
Rabbi Hody Nemes, one of the main architects behind the project, recalled an early meeting of organizers that was scheduled on September 1, 2024. A day earlier, Golberg-Polin and five other hostages who had survived 328 days in captivity were executed by their Hamas captors as they heard IDF troops approaching.
“I considered canceling the meeting, but the team said, ‘No. We must meet.’ So we gathered, we cried, and we agreed to research the idea of a kosher fridge,” said Nemes, who heads Solu, a group that aims to build bridges between Orthodox Jews and surrounding communities.
