CHICAGO — When Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg-Polin stepped onto the stage Wednesday night at the Democratic National Convention, where they planned to speak about their son Hersh, an American-Israeli hostage in Gaza, they were nervous about how the crowd would react.

After organizers of the DNC approached them about speaking, the couple were asked to keep the invitation quiet due to security concerns. Their appearance on the schedule was not publicly confirmed until Wednesday afternoon. 

“Everything has been so quiet, I think, as part of the precaution, of the anticipation that we were not going to be well received, and so for our own safety and protection, they were telling us not to do certain things. We were very prepared to come out to a neutral to negative environment,” Rachel told Jewish Insider after the speech. 

Before walking out, Rachel took a moment to breathe. “First, I kept saying, for a minute or so, ‘I love you, stay strong and survive. I love you, stay strong and survive,’ to Hersh,” said Rachel, who was wearing a piece of tape that said “320,” marking the number of days since 23-year-old Hersh was wounded and kidnapped at the Nova music festival in southern Israel. “Then I started to just say, Adoshem li v’lo ira” — God is with me and I am not afraid.

Then they walked onstage, and their fears were proven wrong. Tens of thousands of Democrats in the United Center greeted Jon and Rachel with a standing ovation and an organic “Bring them home” chant, which so moved Rachel that she put her head down on the lectern and sobbed. 

“It was just very emotional, and I felt like I was in shock. I just wasn’t prepared emotionally for love or for support or for humanity or for empathy,” said Rachel. 

The war in Gaza has been hanging over the Democratic convention all week, but until Wednesday night it had been given limited billing. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Raphael Warnock (D-GA), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and President Joe Biden all addressed the war, but their remarks were brief and did not specifically touch on Israel or the Hamas terror attacks on Oct. 7. A few moments before the Goldberg-Polins, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said Vice President Kamala Harris is “listening” when she says “we need a ceasefire and an end to the loss of innocent lives in Gaza.” 

During Jon and Rachel’s speech, the room was at full attention — silent and rapt at their words of tribute to their son and to all the people affected by the aftermath of Hamas’ actions. 

“There is a surplus of agony on all sides of the tragic conflict in the Middle East. In a competition of pain, there are no winners,” Jon said on stage.

“In the Jewish tradition, we say ‘Kol adam olam u’mlo’oh.’ Every person is an entire universe. We must save all these universes,” he added. “We know the one thing that can most immediately release pressure and bring calm to the entire region: a deal that brings this diverse group of 109 hostages home and ends the suffering of the innocent civilians in Gaza.”

Jon and Rachel were aware that in the large and diverse crowd, many people may not be familiar with Hersh’s story or the story of the hostages in Gaza. 

“Just as we’re walking through the hallways,” Rachel said, “people are grabbing us and hugging us, people who don’t look like us, who are saying, ‘We didn’t know. We’re praying for him,’ and that’s a big deal,” said Rachel.

At the DNC, speeches are a tightly scripted affair, with speakers’ addresses vetted by official speechwriters in multiple rounds of edits. Jon and Rachel said that when the convention team tried to cut some parts for time, the two of them said no — opting to paint a searing picture of their son as an adventurous, fun-loving young adult who is the victim of hate and brutality.

“Like Vice President Kamala Harris, Hersh was born in Oakland, California. Hersh is a happy-go-lucky, laid back, good-humored, respectful and curious person. He is a civilian,” said Rachel. She outlined his experience at Nova after the attack began, when Hersh watched his best friend get killed by a grenade in a roadside bomb shelter where more than two dozen people huddled for safety. Hersh’s left arm was blown off below the elbow before he was taken into Gaza.

“Anyone who is a parent or has had a parent can try to imagine the anguish and misery that Jon and I and all the hostage families are enduring,” said Rachel. 

They acknowledged that the convention allowed them a chance to go home, to the city where both of them grew up, and where they used to bring Hersh in the summers when he was young. But their work is bipartisan, not focused only on Democrats. “This is a political convention, but needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue,” said Jon. “It is a humanitarian issue.”

Soon after Rachel and Jon’s speech, delegates from the Uncommitted National Movement said they were told by the DNC that no Palestinian speaker would be invited to speak on the national stage. The move prompted a small sit-in of protesters unhappy with the Democratic Party’s treatment of Israel and the war in Gaza at the convention. 

But Rachel and Jon shared one story they heard soon after they walked off the stage, indicating how Hersh’s story might resonate with the many strangers in the convention hall.

“Somebody stopped me to say, ‘I want you to know that I was surrounded by people wearing keffiyehs. By the middle of your talk, they were all on their feet, and they were clapping too,’” said Jon. “So hopefully that message penetrates beyond the walls of this building and gets to the two men we need to make the right decisions for our loved ones.”