Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were shot and killed as they left an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington on May 22.Embassy of Israel to the USA via/Reuters
Growing up in Skokie, Ill., in the 1970s, Jeffrey Elikan doesn’t remember the need for any security at his local synagogue. Nor did he feel unsafe at university in the 1980s, when he studied at Columbia and Cambridge.
But as he was walking to synagogue in Washington one day this past year, he said, someone in a passing car shouted “dirty Jew” and swore at him.
Mr. Elikan, a 59-year-old lawyer, recalled this incident Thursday as he stood near the Capital Jewish Museum where, the night before, Israeli embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were gunned down by a man shouting pro-Palestinian slogans.
“It’s very important for Jews to walk tall and proud, and it’s important for Jews to be outwardly Jewish and proud of their Jewish identity,” said Mr. Elikan, wearing a yarmulke as he stood in the morning drizzle.
The killings of Mr. Lischinsky, a 30-year-old Israeli, and Ms. Milgrim, a 26-year-old American, are sharpening already-escalating fears of rising antisemitism across the U.S.
A couple who were soon to become engaged, they were shot to death outside an event with the American Jewish Committee at the museum shortly after 9 p.m. on Wednesday. Police said the suspect was seen pacing outside the building before firing a handgun at a group of four people, which included the couple. He then entered the museum and asked that police be called.
Video of the arrest shows the suspect chanting “free, free Palestine” as he is led away. Elias Rodriguez, 31, of Chicago, is charged with first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials and other crimes.
A manifesto titled “Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home,” was posted online under Mr. Rodriguez’s name on Wednesday. Officers on Thursday searched a Chicago apartment connected to him.
The shootings come amid a renewed Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, where residents have been pushed to the brink of starvation after two months of Israeli blockades to prevent aid getting in. And they follow a rise in reported antisemitic incidents since Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Ayelet Razin Bet Or, an Israeli lawyer who knew Ms. Milgrim, said the young woman had told her that she had felt the increase in hatred against Jewish people over the past year-and-a-half.
“I understood from her that she felt this was her role, this was something she could be helpful in, combatting the rise of antisemitism,” she said.
Analysis: Shooting of Israeli embassy staff in Washington is a flashpoint of U.S. antisemitism
The pair met through Ms. Bet Or’s advocacy for the recognition of gender-based violence on Oct. 7. In her work with the embassy, Ms. Milgrim helped co-ordinate, arrange and accompany Ms. Bet Or to meetings with lawmakers and officials.
U.S. Attorney-General Pam Bondi said on Thursday that the suspect is believed to have acted alone. “Our Jewish community must feel safe. What we saw last night was disgusting,” she told reporters at the scene. FBI Director Kash Patel described the killings as “an act of terror” on X.
Israel’s embassy in Washington, which sits on a hill some distance from the city centre, is protected by a perimeter wall and blast barriers meant to prevent vehicle attacks. Synagogues and other Jewish locations around the city often have their own security, as did the Wednesday event at which the killings happened.
Carney ‘appalled’ by killing of Israeli embassy staff in Washington
In the aftermath, figures from across the political spectrum condemned the violence.
“These horrible D.C. killings, based obviously on antisemitism, must end, NOW! Hatred and Radicalism have no place in the USA,” President Donald Trump, who spoke Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, posted to Truth Social.
Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has described the invasion of Gaza as “genocide,” said in a statement that she was “devastated” by the killings of Mr. Lischinsky and Ms. Milgrim.
“Absolutely nothing justifies the murder of innocents,” she said. “We must be clear that hatred has no home here. Antisemitism is a threat to all we hold dear as a society. It must be confronted and rooted out everywhere.”
The Council on American-Islamic Relations said that “political violence is an unacceptable crime” and is “not the answer” for those protesting against Israel’s actions.
“Such violence only undermines the pursuit of justice. Peaceful protest, civil disobedience and political engagement are the only appropriate and acceptable tools to advocate for policy change in our nation, including an end to U.S. support for the Israeli government’s genocide in Gaza,” the organization said in a statement.
A man walks with an Israeli flag draped over his shoulders, in Washington.Ken Cedeno/Reuters
On Thursday morning, a group of community members washed blood off the street corner where the shooting took place, gathering it to be buried with the dead according to Jewish custom.
Rabbi Mark Rosenberg, who came from Miami to take part, said the country should strengthen anti-hate-speech laws to curb antisemitism before it explodes into violence.
“If you stand outside in the rain without an umbrella, you know what’s going to happen,” he said. Mr. Rosenberg said the killing was “a shock, but we were not surprised.”
Anna Beth Havenar, on holiday in Washington from Atlanta, recounted incidents of antisemitism encountered by Jewish friends in recent years. One in Chicago, she said, carved a Star of David into a pumpkin on his front porch and soon after saw the porch wrecked by vandals. Others in Atlanta received antisemitic leaflets at their homes, delivered by a white supremacist group that protested outside a synagogue with Nazi flags.
Ms. Havenar, 31, who works for a Christian organization that builds connections with the Jewish community, said people have to find ways of discussing Israeli-Palestinian issues without devolving into hatred.
“Everything is so polarized,” she said. “People don’t have a lot of room in their brains for nuance any more.”
With a report from Janice Dickson