Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky, 30, and Sarah Milgrim, 26, were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on May 21. The couple were shot by a gunman as they were leaving an American Jewish Committee Young Diplomats reception that took place at the museum.
Lischinsky and Milgrim were dating, and mere days before their deaths, Lischinsky had purchased an engagement ring that he had planned on proposing to Milgrim with. The couple intended to visit Lischinsky’s family in Israel for Shavuot in June.
The tragedy has sent shockwaves through the D.C. Jewish community, with Jewish officials and community organizations across the country calling for increased security measures at religious and cultural institutions.
Lischinsky was born to a Christian mother and a Jewish father and grew up in Germany before his family immigrated to Israel when he was a teenager. He studied at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, earning a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Asian studies and aiming to become a diplomat.
He started working at the Embassy of Israel to the United States in September 2022, according to his LinkedIn profile, where he worked as a research assistant focusing on Middle Eastern affairs. It was here that he met Milgrim, who would become his girlfriend.
“He loved his job and his girlfriend — soon to-be-fiancée. He believed deeply in the impact of the Abraham Accords and was committed to seeking peace in the Middle East,” said Jakub Klepek, one of Lischinsky’s friends from Reichman University in Herzliya, in an interview with CNN. “We will honor their memory by continuing to spread the message of peace, understanding and mutual respect that Yaron championed until his very last day.”
Milgrim was born and raised in Overland Park, Kansas. She was active in her local Jewish community from a young age, serving on the board of the University of Kansas’s Hillel chapter.
In 2017, she appeared on a news broadcast for local news station KSHB, speaking about swastikas that had been graffitied onto several buildings at her high school, Shawnee Mission East.
“It’s so ignorant that you would bring up a symbol like that, that would bring so much pain to people,” Milgrim, a senior at the time, said. “I worry about going to my synagogue, and now I have to worry about safety at my school, and that shouldn’t be a thing.”
Milgrim was passionate about environmentalism and wanted to work in the field in Israel. She was also a volunteer for the organization Tech2Peace, which provides tech industry training to Israelis and Palestinians to promote dialogue between the two groups. Her coworkers at Tech2Peace describe her as passionate about the organization’s mission of seeking peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
“She was very young, very curious to learn about the conflict and look for solutions,” said Tech2Peace CEO Esti Rozenfeld in a CNN article profiling Lischinsky and Milgrim. “That was her spirit. She came here to promote peace, to promote the effort in this beloved land for dialogue, for partnership, for commitment.”
Milgrim started work at the Embassy of Israel shortly after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks as part of its Department of Public Diplomacy.
Investigations into the shooting are currently ongoing, with the U.S. Department of Justice investigating it as a hate crime and act of terrorism. The alleged shooter, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez, was charged with murder and did not enter a plea during an initial hearing on May 22. He will continue to be detained, with his next hearing scheduled for June 18.
