Collective and Personal Grief
Losing friends we know and those we don't
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
Saturday, October 7, 2023, was the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah, which translates to “for the joy of the Torah.” In synagogues across Israel, people danced and sang with Torah scrolls in their arms as if those scrolls were cherished dance partners.
On this same day, Hamas barbarically murdered over 1,200 people in their homes and at a music festival in southern Israel. It was the highest death toll of Jews in a single day since the Nazi genocide, and the first time since the Middle Ages that Jews were massacred in the historic land of Israel.
Nearly 11 months later, in August, after the Israel Defense Forces found the bodies of six hostages in a Gaza tunnel —among them 23-year-old student, Hersh Goldberg-Polin—my friend Vigi died outside of Tel Aviv in hospice. I was two weeks shy of going to Israel to say goodbye to him.
***
Vigi and I met over 40 years ago in Manhattan at what was then known as the 92nd Street Y. He was mysterious and quirky. He loved opera and museums and cafes. He was from Tel Aviv and made a point of telling me he was a strict nonbeliever.
Last month, as he was dying, he asked me not to light a memorial candle for him or say any prayer of mourning. Instead, I whispered his name over and over in the wake of his death. I will never get to tell him in person, Ani ohevet ot’ha—I love you—in his native Hebrew. He said those words to me on my first trip to Israel 36 years ago. He loved me, and, I later understood, he loved men, too.
My first trip to Israel, Vigi met me at Ben Gurion Airport, and we set off to see his country from the north to the south. The country brought biblical and modern Jewish history to life. Streets bore the names of ancient Jewish royalty and prophets, and medieval Jewish poets alongside the man who modernized the Hebrew language as well as the founder of Tel Aviv.
Seeing the Israeli flag in Israel moved me. The flag’s simple design—a six-point blue Magen David, or star of David, meant to evoke a shield—was framed between two matching blue lines, floating on a stark white background. I noticed the Magen David and the Red Crescent—the Israeli and Arab counterparts of the Red Cross. At that moment, coexistence seemed possible for our people.
“The Jewish colors of the flag—blue and white—are like a prayer shawl,” I said.
“I wouldn’t know,” Vigi said. “I’ve never worn one.”
After that summer, Israel was synonymous with Vigi, and Vigi was synonymous with Israel.
***
October 7, 2023, was day one of captivity for the 240 people—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—who attended the Nova Music Festival, or were waking up to hell on a sparkling Shabbat morning. Hersh lost his left arm when Hamas lobbed grenades at the bomb shelter in which he was hiding. It was reported that he managed to fashion a tourniquet to survive his injury.
Hersh Goldberg-Polin was an American citizen who moved to Israel with his family when he was seven years old. His parents, Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin, never let the world forget their son was kidnapped from a musical festival extolling peace and love. In their hometown of Chicago, they told their son’s story at the Democratic National Convention, where they received a standing ovation and heard the delegates chanting, “Bring them home.” In Washington, DC, they told Hersh’s story to Senators and representatives of Congress. At the Vatican, they told that same story to Pope Francis.
***
Vigi chose not to continue treatment when his cancer returned. I screamed and begged him for two hours over the telephone to reconsider. I lost my voice for days afterward. I should have ignored him when he threatened to slam the door in my face if I came to Tel Aviv.
When Jews hear of someone’s death, many say, Baruch Dayan Emet—Blessed is God, the True Judge. That response always struck me as misleading. Is God, as the True Judge, moved when they hear the names of the six dead hostages each said aloud? Is God moved when they hear my shaky voice reciting the Mourners' Kaddish despite Vigi’s admonition not to do so?
***
In solidarity with Hersh’s mother, people began to wear stickers fashioned from duct tape marking the days since the hostages were taken.
On Day 328, the Goldberg-Polins went in a convoy from Tel Aviv to the Gazan border. They stood with other hostage families, taking turns talking into a bullhorn, hoping that their captive loved ones could hear their shouting. Rachel Goldberg-Polin shouted to the wind, and to Hersh, “It’s Mama. Hersh, we are working day and night, and we will never stop.”
That same day Vigi entered hospice. “I can’t take care of myself anymore,” he cried.
He asked me to come to Israel.
***
On Day 330, Hersh’s emaciated body was found in a tunnel with five other hostages. There is a saying in the Talmud that saving a life is akin to saving the world. The converse is that six worlds were destroyed, shot at blank point.
The hostages lived. Vigi lived. The hostages died. Vigi died. Seven lights, seven worlds, extinguished and transformed into standalone flames of Yahrtzeit candles burning day and night during the first seven days of mourning. I say all their names out loud so I will never forget.
Carmel Gat, 40
Eden Yerushalmi, 24
Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23
Alex Lobanov, 32
Almog Sarusi, 27
Ori Danino, 25
Avigdor “Vigi” Jacobowitz, 68
***
On Day 333, Rachel and Jon Goldberg-Polin eulogized their first born, their only son. Rachel Goldberg-Polin called him “sweet boy,” the same name I call my 20-something-year old son. As she saw her boy off on the “journey” to his eternal home, she prayed it would be a magnificent trip her for spirited and adventurous son.
That same day my son went on his own adventure to Washington, DC to a new job. How all of these things happen alongside each other is almost impossible to comprehend. My boy, Rachel’s boy. I’m mindful of a Judeo-Spanish phrase, bar minam, which translates to "far from us" or "except us." In other words, may we not share the same fate. Guilt. Disparity.
This year, October 7 will fall a few days before Yom Kippur, the holiest and most solemn day on the Jewish calendar. There is so much grief this year, collective and personal. Israelis and Palestinians are suffering.
And here in America, I miss my friend. We move forward carrying our grief over mass tragedy and a way of life we once knew. The juxtaposition is almost too much to bear for those of us bereft.
Judy has published essays and reviews in a variety of venues including The New York Times, The Boston Globe, McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, Cognoscenti, Brevity and Catapult. She received a Pushcart Prize nomination and is a four-time recipient of the Simon Rockower Award for Essay from the American Jewish Press Association.
Judy has received fellowships from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, the Mineral School in Mineral, Washington and the Vermont Studio Center. She is most recently the recipient of the Alonzo G. Davis Fellowship awarded to a Latinx writer from the Virginian Center for Creative Arts and was the Erin Donovan Fellow in Non-Fiction at the Mineral School in 2018.
This essay is part of a new collection of work inspired by the anthology On Being Jewish Now: Reflections of Authors and Advocates. Want to contribute? Instructions here. Subscribe here.
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This is so moving Judy. Nice to see you in Newtonville recently.
It is always moving to hear you read and read your words.
Best,
Jen
Very moving and meaningful on the day before October 7 2024.
Thank you for sharing this.