“I want to come to more Jewish events. Can you please invite me directly?” Sarah Milgrim recently asked Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who said, “of course” he would. She handed him her business card.
It was the morning of May 22 when Shemtov, sorting through the stack of cards he’d accrued over the past week or so to follow up with community members, found Milgrim’s business card. The young professional and her boyfriend had been shot and killed the night before while leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum.
Shemtov recounted this memory at a Wednesday solidarity gathering in honor of the May 21 shooting victims.
Organized by American Friends of Lubavitch in Washington, D.C., the event featured speeches with messages of Jewish survival and perseverance amid tragedy.
Shemtov, the executive vice president of American Friends of Lubavitch, dialed Milgrim’s father’s number on his cell phone in front of an audience of about 300.
“[Sarah] was the perfect child — perfect in every way in respect for her family and love for everyone that was around her,” Bob Milgrim told the crowd. “Her goal and mission in life was to do good deeds and accomplish as much as she could to establish peace and harmony between groups in this world.”
The Jewish traditional phrase, “May their passing be for a blessing,” doesn’t encompass the grief that Bob Milgrim and his wife, Nancy, are experiencing, he said.
“Our hearts are broken as well as members of our local community, Jewish community and people around the world,” Bob Milgrim said. “But Sarah wouldn’t want our hearts to remain broken.”
Instead, he said his “beautiful soul” of a daughter would want people to mend their hearts “so that we can do what she set out to do, which was to fight hate, fight antisemitism, create love, bridge gaps with all minorities, love and respect the environment, to help and promote the fate of the Jewish people and to promote Israel.”
Rabbi Dr. Yechiel Leiter, the ambassador of Israel to the United States, discussed Jewish survival in the context of Jewish history.
“How do we turn pain into perseverance? How do we pick up the pieces and move forward?” he asked. “If I had to summarize the essence of Jewish survival, I would say that that’s the essence of turning pain into perseverance.”
Leiter said he channeled this perseverance while carrying out a difficult task: informing the parents of Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky of their children’s deaths.
“I needed to draw strength to make that phone call,” he said. Leiter’s strength comes from continuing to live in honor of his late son, Moshe, who was killed in combat in Gaza in 2023.
Shemtov spoke to the uptick in antisemitism in recent years.
“It’s gotten a little tougher for Jews to walk the streets because now it’s been more dangerous,” he remarked before inviting his son, Rabbi Menachem Shemtov of Chabad Georgetown, to share his personal experience.
In January 2024, Rabbi Menachem Shemtov was physically and verbally assaulted by a Lyft driver in what was a suspected hate crime.
“What starts as words leads to action — assault in my case — to then two people walking down the street in our nation’s capital getting shot with no shame,” Rabbi Menachem Shemtov said.
He urged members of the audience to inform others of “what is going on day in and day out” and fight that hatred before it intensifies.
“As Jews … we’ve been through terrible things, but we’re still standing and we will always continue to be standing and standing tall and proud,” Rabbi Menachem Shemtov said.
Rabbi Levi Shemtov expressed disappointment that although D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser had committed to delivering remarks at the event, she didn’t show up.
At one point during the program, the senior Shemtov announced that he would step away from the podium so that attendees could hear the “words of comfort” the mayor had for the Jewish community. He was met with silence.
Harmeet Dhillon, the assistant attorney general for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Justice, said that through the pending investigations, DOJ staff are taking the prosecution of hate crimes seriously and standing against antisemitism across the U.S. But there is more to do.
“As a civil rights leader and as a lawyer in the U.S., I want to say that, on behalf of all of us at the DOJ, we feel deeply that we are not doing enough,” Dhillon said at the event. “We must do better.
“This is not a left/right issue; it is not an issue of the Jews. It is an issue for all Americans and for all mankind to eradicate the type of hate that occurred here in the city last week.”
“We cannot do it alone,” Ron Halber, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, said. “Sarah and Yaron were taken away from us in the worst way imaginable, but our best way forward is remembering how they lived.
“Like them, we will fiercely advocate for peace and fight hatred with love, and when we do that, their memories will forever be a blessing and their example will always live on.”
