EXCLUSIVE: Jewish student leaders from across the United States gathered Monday in the nation’s capital for the Israel on Campus Coalition’s National Leadership Summit, where they heard an address from the parents of an American-Israeli hostage killed by Hamas.
Jon and Rachel Polin, the parents of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin, delivered a direct appeal to the group of more than 700 students: find your purpose, speak with courage and help secure the release of the 50 hostages still believed to be held in Gaza.
“Pull your shoulders back, head up, be proud, engage, try to truly learn and listen,” Jon Polin said. “Disarm the other side by engaging and talking.”
Their remarks, shared exclusively with Fox News Digital, came just days after the latest ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas collapsed. The Polins appeared alongside freed hostages Keith and Aviva Siegel as keynote speakers.
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Hersh Goldberg-Polin was abducted by Hamas terrorists from the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023. His death was confirmed this summer, following nearly 10 months of uncertainty. “He will always be 23,” Rachel recounted.
Rachel spoke plainly of her family’s pain. “This wasn’t a choice,” she said. “This was very much reflexive, very innate, very primal and natural as a parent… I need Hersh. I need him. Like I need water.”
She challenged students to find their “why,” recalling the words of a former hostage who survived three days in a Gaza tunnel with Hersh. He told the Polins that Hersh had quoted Viktor Frankl: “When you have a why, you’ll figure out how.” The surviving hostages, Rachel said, repeated the “what is our why?” mantra daily to keep spirits high.
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In sharing who Hersh was, Jon described a young man who embodied what he now calls “a revolution for good.”
“He excelled at listening,” Jon said. “He would go over to people he disagreed with and say, ‘Hey, let’s have coffee. Let’s talk.’ Rarely do we win when we’re outshouting another side.” Rachel called it “radical listening.”
Jon shared a conversation with another Israeli who had made Hersh’s photo his phone background. “Every morning, the first thing I do is look at my phone. I see this picture of Hersh. And I ask: what can I do to be better?” he told Jon. “That’s the revolution.”
“Do one thing every day,” Rachel urged the student leaders. “Some people wear a yellow ribbon. Some say a psalm. Some write to the White House. It doesn’t matter what it is, it matters that you’re doing something.”
Addressing the spike in antisemitism on college campuses, Jon urged students not to succumb to despair or victimhood.
“Let’s stop saying, ‘Woe is us,’” he said. “Pull your shoulders back. Put your head up… Flip the narrative to one of pride, strength and resilience.”
Instead, he challenged students to confront hatred with confidence. “We are challenged. We have difficulties. But… we have every ingredient to overcome our difficulties. We need to do it. We need to do it together. We don’t have another choice.”
Rachel also urged the student leaders to strive for progress, not perfection. “We all have to figure out what’s our purpose,” she said. “What am I going to do today so when I go to sleep tonight, I’ve left the world one molecule better?”
Her remarks ended on a note of hope.
“I bless all of us to have the resilience, the recovery, the healing, and the comfort that we all so desperately are thirsty for,” Rachel said. “There is light ahead. Let’s all go toward that light.”
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