Sarah Milgrim, you know, she was one of those people who knew exactly what she wanted out of life, according to folks who knew her well. She was like this total idealist who poured her heart and soul into Jewish life and the future of Israel. Back in high school, out in the suburbs of Kansas City, she was all about the Jewish Student Union. And then, as a senior, she got interviewed by a local news station after some jerk spray-painted swastikas on a school building. “I’m really worried about going to my synagogue,” she said. “And now I gotta worry about safety at my school.”
Later on, when she hit up the University of Kansas, she was all up in the board of her campus Hillel chapter and even went on a Birthright trip to Israel. Moving on to graduate school at American University and the U.N.’s University for Peace, where she focused on sustainable development, she ended up getting involved in this N.G.O. called Tech2Peace. They bring together young Israelis and Palestinians for training in Israel’s high-tech industry. Then she joined the American Jewish Committee’s young-professionals program. She was thinking about working for U.S.A.I.D., you know? But then, right after those October 7th attacks on Israel, she decided to head over to the Israeli Embassy in D.C. to do her thing. Dana Walker, the director of the American Jewish Committee program, said she was all about making the world a better place.
Milgrim’s boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, was right there with her at the Israeli Embassy. He was like her, all idealistic and stuff, but their lives took different paths, you know? Lischinsky grew up in Israel and Germany. He served in the Israel Defense Forces and was an Israeli citizen. His dad was Jewish, his mom Christian. He even wrote on an application for a yearlong conservative liberal-arts program in Jerusalem about the struggles he faced growing up in a religious home but living in a secular society. Ronen Shoval, a political philosopher who taught Lischinsky, called him a “man of belief.” Lischinsky was ready to tie his future to the future of the Jewish state, according to Shoval. It was like he was willing to change his whole life for it.
So, on this one Wednesday, Milgrim, who was twenty-six, and Lischinsky, who was thirty, were at this reception for young diplomats hosted by the A.J.C. at the Capital Jewish Museum in D.C. They were talking about stepping up aid for humanitarian crises in Gaza and the Middle East. And then, around 9 P.M., they left the event with a couple of other folks. And that’s when this guy named Elias Rodriguez, wearing a blue raincoat and a backpack, walked past them. The F.B.I. says he turned around, pulled out a gun, and started shooting at them from behind. They fell to the ground, and he kept shooting. It was just a horrible scene. Milgrim tried to crawl away, but Rodriguez just kept firing. She tried to get up, but he reloaded and shot her again. She was taken to the medical examiner and declared dead at 9:35 P.M. Lischinsky was pronounced dead right there at the scene.
Rodriguez didn’t even say anything at his first court appearance the next day. He had bought a ticket for the event a few hours before the shooting. Later, he told the cops, “I did it for Palestine. I did it for Gaza.” It’s just heartbreaking, you know? Sharon Brous, the rabbi of IKAR, said that it was clear this guy was out to kill Jews. Everyone who knew Milgrim and Lischinsky is just devastated. They were trying to make the world a better place, and they got gunned down for it. It’s just insane that someone would do something like this in the nation’s capital, at an event meant for unity and peace-building. It’s just a tragic loss for everyone who knew them.
