Thousands Gather in Israel for Funeral of Hersh Goldberg-Polin

At a sprawling cemetery in Jerusalem on Monday, thousands of people thronged the parking lot to memorialize Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a dual Israeli American citizen and one of six hostages whose bodies were found in Gaza on Saturday, as family members and friends delivered emotional eulogies and sang Jewish hymns.

The funeral, which was attended by President Isaac Herzog of Israel, was a somber reminder of the perilous situation facing the dozens of hostages still thought to be alive in the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. It reflected the resonance that Mr. Goldberg-Polin’s plight had with a wide spectrum of Israeli society, drawing secular and religious people who had never met him but found inspiration in his story.

The gathering also signified the end of a nearly 11-month journey, in which Mr. Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin, crisscrossed the globe to lobby for their son’s freedom, meeting with President Biden, United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Pope Francis.

Clad in a ripped shirt, a Jewish mourning custom, Ms. Goldberg-Polin said it was a “stunning honor” to be her son’s mother and spoke of the unimaginable distress and torment of worrying about him.

“I tried hard to suppress the missing you part because that, I was convinced, would break me,” she said, describing the almost yearlong experience as an “odyssey of torture.”