A Skokie grandmother remembered her late 23-year-old grandson Sunday at a vigil to honor the second anniversary of Hamas’ attack on an Israeli music festival.
Leah Polin, 87, said her grandson, Hersh Goldberg Polin, was hardworking and loved to have fun. He was one of the hostages taken after the Oct. 7 attack in 2023.
Last year, she saw a video of her grandson with his arm blown off, but knew he was alive.
She later found out he was in a small tunnel with five other men and women. Leah Polin said word got out that they were to be released in days.
“From what we heard, everybody was excited,” she said.
Her hopes to find him were high until he was killed. Her grandson was shot to death last August.
The north suburban Jewish community and its supporters gathered for the vigil at the Skokie Valley Agudath Jacob Synagogue to mark the anniversary of the attacks and rally for support of Israel. The vigil was organized by the Simon Wiesenthal Center, the advocacy group StandWithUs and the Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest.
Over 200 people attended, including those who were personally impacted when Hamas fighters launched a surprise attack on southern Israeli communities and the Tribe of Nova music festival, an attack that initiated the Israel-Hamas war.
Nearly 1,200 were killed and 251 hostages were taken Oct. 7, 2023. Since then, over 66,000 people are estimated to have been killed and approximately 167,000 wounded in airstrikes and an unprecedented humanitarian crisis, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Once Leah Polin got word of her grandson’s death, she and about 11 other family members flew to Israel to be with other family members and to attend the funeral.
Tens of thousands of Israelis in Jerusalem were apologizing in Hebrew, she said.
“The cavalcade to get us to the funeral was very, very, very emotional,” she said.
The fight to bring the rest of the 48 hostages home remains for Leah Polin and her family, though only 20 are thought to be alive.
The Chicago-area Jewish community has been supportive of Polin, including U.S. Rep Brad Schneider, D-Highland Park, whom she considers a friend.
Schneider spoke at the vigil and remembered the lives that have been lost and those in custody. He has also been vocal about his support for Israel.
Last Monday, President Donald Trump announced a 20-point peace plan to end the war in Gaza, which was supported by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other world leaders. Trump set a Sunday deadline for Hamas to agree and threatened more attacks if they failed to do so.
Hamas on Friday said it was ready to release all hostages but wants to continue negotiating points in Trump’s peace plan.
Schneider said in his remarks Sunday that he was hopeful Trump’s peace plan would bring the rest of the hostages home. After the vigil, members marched in memory of those who died and called to bring the rest of the hostages home safely, which they do every week, Polin said.
Alison Pure-Slovin, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, was in a synagogue when she first learned of Hamas’ attacks on Israel in 2023. At the time, she said, she feared for her family there.
After learning more about the attack and finding out innocent civilians were killed, she then knew of the kind of hatred resurfacing. Since the Oct. 7 attacks, she’s been verbally attacked for wearing her Jewish star in public — being called a “dirty Jew” on several occasions, she said.
“My children in Israel feel safer than my children in America, and that’s a frightening statement to make,” Pure-Slovin said.
She wants peace to come out of the war, a world where two states can come to a solution and to bring the hostages home.
“Just like the victims of the Holocaust rose from the ashes, we will rise from this, but we shouldn’t have to struggle so much in this country, the land of the free,” Pure-Slovin said.