A couple soon to be married – the woman a Johnson County, Kansas native – was gunned down Wednesday night in a double murder at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., by an apparent terrorist who chanted “Free Palestine” when taken into custody after the murders.
Prairie Village native Sarah Milgrim, 26, was Jewish and attended Shawnee Mission East High School, her father told The Kansas City Star, graduating in 2017. Her soon-to-be fiance Yaron Lischinsky, 30 and a Christian according to published reports, was 16 when he emigrated from Nuremburg, Germany, to Israel. He was a veteran of the Israeli Defense Force. The two worked as staff for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., and were leaving an event they attended at the museum when the lone gunman attacked.
Police arrested 31 year-old Chicagoan Elias Rodriguez, who witnesses said tossed his handgun in a nearby bush and then entered the foyer of the museum in the chaos after the shooting. At some point he began yelling a confession to the shooting, witnesses said. Rodriguez is reportedly associated with the far-left group The Party for Socialism and Liberation. FBI officers raided his Chicago home Thursday
The shooting comes 19 months after a Hamas attack on Israel killed 1,200 Israeli civilians Oct. 7, 2023, and sparked subsequent demonstrations supporting Palestine against Israel in the U.S. and on American college campuses.
Kansas Democrat Governor Laura Kelly and Democrat 3rd District Congresswoman Sharice Davids denounced the hatred and bigotry that spawned Wednesday’s shooting, but with Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar – Congress’ two most vehement anti-semites and Palestinian supporters in their party – Democrats have had a particularly difficult time balancing their progressive leftist rhetoric with anti-Jewish activities, particularly among younger party members.
Writing for the Jewish News Syndicate, Mitchell Bard notes “After the bipartisan Antisemitism Awareness Act passed the House last May by an overwhelming vote (320-91), it seemed a no-brainer for the Senate to send it to President Joe Biden to become law. Yet Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), often referred to as the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in American political history, refused to allow a vote. Schumer, who called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu an obstacle to peace and essentially called for his overthrow, proved to be the impediment to codifying Jew-hatred as a prohibited form of discrimination on campuses when Jewish students felt under siege.”
Tributes to the two victims flooded social media. Facebook digital creator Ian Segal penned a tribute to Milgrim:
In Memory of Sarah Milgrim: A Light for Peace Silenced by Hate
Sarah Milgrim was more than a scholar, a bridge-builder, and far more than the sum of her credentials. She was a force—quiet but fierce—who lived at the intersection of compassion and conviction. With a Master’s in International Affairs from American University and a second Master’s in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development from The University for Peace, Sarah dedicated her life to healing a fractured world. She did so not through slogans or soundbites but through the relentless, unglamorous labor of peacebuilding, environmental stewardship, and religious dialogue.
While working with Tech2Peace in Tel Aviv, Sarah dove deep into grassroots initiatives that sought to study peace and live it. Her research on Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation, conducted with academic rigor and human empathy, exemplified her belief that change must come from the ground up—from people willing to speak, listen, and understand.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
