A moving tribute to Hersh Goldberg-Polin z”l appears in the fourth season of The Diplomat, which premiered this week on the Netflix streaming service.
In Episode 6 of the new season, Frances Manning, the housekeeper at the residence of the US ambassador to the United Kingdom, played by Australian actress Penny Downie, tells the deputy ambassador that an American soldier saved her father on the battlefield in Belgium during World War II. A soldier named Hersh Polin from Richmond, Virginia, caught a grenade thrown at her father and hurled it aside. Both men survived, but one of Polin’s limbs was amputated in the grenade explosion.
Although the story takes place during World War II, the tribute is clear. On October 7, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who lived in Richmond, Virginia, as a child, went to the Nova music festival. After Hamas’s attack began, he and his friend, Aner Shapira, hid a shelter, where Hersh was wounded, his hand was amputated, and he was abducted to Gaza. In August 2024, Hersh was murdered in captivity alongside hostages Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov and Almog Sarusi.
Hersh’s mother, Rachel Polin, told Davar that she does not watch television and therefore had not seen the series or the scene, but several people had already told her about it: “It’s interesting to know that there are many people around the world trying to ensure that the story of the hostages is not erased.”
The Diplomat, starring Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell, is one of Netflix’s most successful series. Its creator and lead writer is Debora Cahn, an American Jew.