On Tuesday night, Sept. 3, members of the DMV Jewish community and beyond gathered together at Adas Israel Congregation in Washington, D.C., for a national vigil to honor the lives of the six hostages who were killed by Hamas several days earlier and to pray for the safe and immediate return of the hostages still being held captive by the terrorist organization.
The six hostages who were murdered — American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi and Ori Danino — were kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7. Their bodies were found and recovered by the Israel Defense Forces on Aug. 31.
Nearly 2,000 people attended the vigil in person and more than 7,000 attended online. Together, attendees listened to family members of hostages tell stories of their lost or still captive loved ones, prayed, sang and shared feelings of grief and failure — and hope.
The vigil was attended by second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is a member of Adas Israel and the husband of Vice President Kamala Harris. Emhoff spoke about his grief and his relationship with Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin.
“It is good to be together this evening. There is comfort in community,” Emhoff said. “But standing on this bimah, I can only be direct: This is hard. I feel raw. I’m gutted.”
Emhoff went on to explain that he and Harris spoke to Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents that weekend and that, while it wasn’t their first phone conversation with the parents, it was different.
“Why does Hersh’s loss feel so personal to us? Because Rachel and Jon made sure we knew him — just like they made sure on our phone call over the weekend,” Emhoff said.
Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin had recently spoken at the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 21, where they shared their son’s story shared the dire straits of the hostages.
In the days since their son’s capture, Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents had worn pieces of tape over their hearts with the number of days he had been in captivity written on it, but at his funeral the parents still wore the tape. This time, the tape bore the number 332.
“I saw that and thought: the count was never about their son alone,” Emhoff said. “Jon and Rachel’s hearts have room to hold everyone. They are not giving up, and neither can we.”
While Emhoff spoke at the vigil, organizers like Gil Preuss, CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, and Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, stressed that the event was in no way political. The vigil’s sponsors included the Hostage and Missing Families Forum, Jewish Federation of Greater Washington, Adas Israel Congregation, Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, JCRC of Greater Washington and National Council of Jewish Women.
Halber said the event encouraged “love, comfort and resilience.”
“In the Jewish community, we all feel for the hostages. We all feel for the families,” he said. “Nobody believed that after the first exchange there would not be a second exchange soon.”
Preuss echoed this sentiment and spoke to the careful planning of the vigil.
“We were very careful in planning it that this was not going to be partisan, and we were not going to be making statements specifically to or about the Israeli government or the American government,” Preuss said. “This is really a cry in demand of everyone, not one or the other, it’s a responsibility that we all have got to get the hostages out alive as opposed to criticizing one perspective, one person or one another.”
In the days following the vigil, Preuss said the feedback he had received from both the local community and Zoom attendees was overwhelmingly positive.
“It was a powerful message, a powerful gathering of the community — having all of the clergy across denominations up on the bimah at the end and singing and praying for the release of the hostages, I think it just moved everyone,” Preuss said.
The multi-floored, packed room where the vigil was held hosted people of all ages and many faiths. Some attendees wore yellow ribbons, some wore shirts with messages advocating for the release of the hostages and every attendee gained a connection to someone.
Every chair in the audience was fitted with a double-sided poster featuring the name and age of a hostage. Some of the posters had the person’s original age crossed out and rewritten to reflect those who had since marked birthdays while in captivity.
According to Preuss, the posters being double-sided had a special significance because when the crowd was asked to lift up the posters, those in the audience behind them would see the faces of the hostages looking back at them.
“In the midst of all this pain and tragedy and the challenges that we’re going through, this is what gives me hope. This gives me a sense of positivity for the community,” Preuss said. “We come together, and we try to make a difference.”
