Rachel Goldberg: What will your excuse be?

Rachel Goldberg spoke with eloquence, passion, and dignity at the 14th November rally in Washington DC rally in support of Israel. She is the mother of Israeli-American civilian Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was abducted by Hamas on 7 Oct.

You will likely want to hear her speak but let me just put down a few points that were particularly meaningful to me as I listened:

1. He was kidnapped from the music festival — I see in my mind’s eye the dancing youth, carefree and happy. I have a new understanding of trance music festivals since having spoken with a friend of Or Levy, another hostage being held by Hamas, both of whom were frequent participants in these festivals. The festivals bring people together from all walks of life whose common language is music. They take place in countries around the world, with Israel, perhaps not surprisingly (while I was initially surprised to hear this) a major force in the psytrance (psychedelic trance) world. The majority of psytrance producers and musicians are Israeli.
2. Rachel says: “We, the hostage families have lived the last 39 days in slow-motion torment…. We all have third-degree burns on our souls.”
3. She continues: “The real souls suffering are those of the hostages and they want to ask everyone in the world, all the screamers, the indifferent, the experts, the academics, … the perfectly outraged, the righteous, …why is the world accepting that 240 human beings from almost 30  countries have been stolen and buried alive.”
4. The hostages range in age from 10 months to 87 years. They are Jewish, Christian, Moslem, Hindu and Buddhist. Rachel asks: “Why are they being left underground in the dirt?”
5. Abigail Mor Idan, 3, was abducted after having seen her parents killed. Rachel says, “She would like me to ask the world: why are you letting her stay in the dark, in her trauma, buried in the earth’s crust.”
6. “Joshua Molel, who is a Tanzanian African graduate student studying agribusiness [in Israel], would like for me to ask you why somehow his life actually doesn’t matter.”
7. “The world must prepare what we will say to them.”
8. Rachel quoted the Christian German who risked his own life to save Jews, saying he did it because, “At least I will know when I die and stand before God, he will not ask me what he asked Cain in the Bible: ‘Where were you when your brother’s blood cried out from the ground?’ “
9. She ends with: “What the world needs to start thinking about today is, what will your excuse be?”

WATCH: Rachel Goldberg, mother of 23-year-old Hersh Goldberg-Polin who was kidnapped from southern #Israel by Hamas terrorists on October 7, spoke at the DC rally on Nov 14th about the anguish she's experiencing, along with so many other families.#BringThemHomeNOW@bringhomenow pic.twitter.com/jk4k6HTDro

— StandWithUs (@StandWithUs) November 15, 2023

The rally was attended by almost 300K people. Here is a YouTube Video of the entire three hours of the demonstration and speakers, if you want easy reference to it:

Feature Image is a screenshot from the “X” post of Rachel Goldberg’s speech.