Meeting Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin in Berkeley

It was the summer of 2000. I had recently completed my first year of classes as a law student at UC Berkeley after living in Jerusalem the year prior. While in Israel, I volunteered for an organization that organized conferences promoting tolerance and co-existence amongst Israelis and Palestinians. Now, in the summer of 2000, I wed my college sweetheart, Miriam, and began preparations for our life as a married couple.

In the debate of whether to live in Berkeley (the vicinity of my law school) or Palo Alto (where Miriam was pursuing both her masters and PhD at Stanford), I felt strongly that we should live in the East Bay, believing the traditional Jewish community to be larger, more robust and diverse.  Never mind that at Sproul Plaza — the historic area where Mario Savio galvanized students to support racial equality and folk singer Joan Baez gave some of her earliest performances — I witnessed antisemitic rallies advocating for the eradication of the Jewish State while waving pro-Jihadist flags in the air. And never mind that Miriam would have to contend with commuting 80+ miles roundtrip to Silicon Valley traveling from our home in Berkeley to Stanford and back. Much of my enthusiasm for Berkeley living was informed by my admiration for some of the “older” young couples, especially Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin.

Then, as now, Rachel was exceedingly down-to-earth, sweet, welcoming, and kind.  Her warmth and openness regularly brought people of all types into her orbit.  

In fact, I had first met Rachel years earlier when studying in Jerusalem’s Old City after completing High School. Rachel was the popular, pretty waitress at a bustling Jerusalem restaurant and, for whatever reason, decided to adopt me and bring me into her world.  With her, I attended Shabbat meals, meeting other Americans living in the Holy Land — Israeli Supreme Court clerks, teachers, volunteers, scholars and recent “olim.” Conversations often revolved around politics, adapting to life in Israel, and the weekly Torah portion. Rachel has a gravitational pull that, as the entire world now knows, is powerful without being overpowering.

Jon is an obvious complement to Rachel. Equally warm, centered, and effortlessly cool. He and Rachel share a similar Midwestern, Chicago affect. And, at the time, Jon was a fast-rising employee at Clorox with designs to become the independent business-owner and entrepreneur that he ultimately became. I admired them a lot and hoped that Miriam and I would have a marriage as strong and easy as theirs.

With the onset of the coming academic year, we had more pressing concerns than the long-term fate of our blessed marriage; namely, we needed to find a place to live. And fast. So there Miriam and I found ourselves at the entranceway to Jon and Rachel’s home.  It contained a small yard and garden located past a long driveway behind a much larger home inhabited by a Holocaust-surviving French landlord named Anouchka. Rachel and Jon were preparing to move to a larger place because Rachel, as evidenced by the bump in her belly, was pregnant.  

Miriam and I both recall Rachel telling us how the house was perfect for evading an intruder because one could run in circles and never be trapped in a room.

Jon and Rachel moved to their new place and we moved in to the little brown-shingled one-bedroom home that we named both the “Love Shack” and the “Shack in the Back.”  Soon thereafter, we celebrated with Rachel and Jon and attended the bris of their newborn son, Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

We had not seen much of Jon and Rachel after leaving Berkeley. Facebook maintained a sense of intimacy and connection the way social media can and we found ourselves spending time together at a Passover program about a decade ago. Yet the overwhelming sorrow and dread we felt when we learned that Hersh was kidnapped is a terror I hope to never experience again and which makes the Goldberg-Polins’ horror almost unfathomable.

Jon and Rachel are just like us. Similar goals, similar values and similar loves. I will never forget being at a Shabbat meal in Berkeley where Rachel, ever practical and focused on the “important stuff,” told us how she asked that Jon provide her with exercise equipment in lieu of fancy jewelry.  A deeply loving mother deeply in love with her firstborn, I can vividly recollect the headphones Rachel showed us that she would place over her head together with the bottle of tequila she would pull out while sleep-training baby Hersh. It pained her to hear him cry even though she knew he needed to learn how to self-soothe. I can’t allow myself to fully internalize how heart-rending it must have been knowing her son was trapped, in real pain, and without a parent nearby who could soothe him when he truly needed to be soothed. 

My eldest, Elijah, is returning to spend a second year to study at the same seminary in Jerusalem that I was attending when I first met Rachel nearly 30 years ago. In March of next year, he plans to enlist in the IDF and help prevent the suffering and hell that Jon and Rachel will now endure for a lifetime.

Soon after the Oct. 7 massacre, I listened to a discussion led by Rabbi Reuven Taragin reflecting on the greatest single-day massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. He explained that while he may not always be able to explain the “why” of a terrible occurrence happening, it is in our power to determine how we react.

I cannot fathom why Hersh or the other hostages were taken or murdered.  But what I can fathom, through Jon and Rachel’s tireless campaigning on behalf of the hostages and unceasing efforts to protect innocents, is the notion that the choices we make matter.

I cannot fathom why Hersh or the other hostages were taken or murdered. But what I can fathom, through Jon and Rachel’s tireless campaigning on behalf of the hostages and unceasing efforts to protect innocents, is the notion that the choices we make matter. Let us honor Hersh and the memory of all others senselessly murdered by the Hamas death cult and redouble our efforts to bring them all home now. May the memory of each of the precious lives lost be a blessing and may we honor them in the choices we make to free those who are shackled.

Jonathan Stern is a former President of Beth Jacob Congregation