By Andrew Adler
Community Editor
The murders of Sarah Lynn Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky outside the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. on May 21 were horrific enough: a pair of young Israeli Embassy staffers on the cusp of becoming engaged to be married, slain by a gunman firing 21 rounds from a 9mm semiautomatic pistol — shattering the lives of two people and their families, and enveloping many of us in a renewed haze of sorrow.
That was gut-punch enough. But two days after the news broke, I made what may have been a tactical error: clicking on a Washington Post story posted on Facebook, giving readers further insight into what defined these two people. It was meant to be sympathetic yet dispassionate, more informative than opinionated.
My error wasn’t so much in reading the Post’s story as in scrolling through the hundreds of comments below. I don’t consider myself naïve about the potential for unsettling expression on social media – certainly not anything to do with post-October 7 Israel. Having said all that, I was still struck/dismayed/sickened by the unabashed vitriol unfolding in front of me.
“He is a great man who raised a gun for truth and killed the killers of innocent Palestinians,” read one comment by one poster from Islamabad, Pakistan. “Just wait more is coming!” declared another, accompanied by a laughing emoji. “What a hero…every little bit helps,” said a third.
Anyone has the right to voice opinion about how the Israeli government is prosecuting the war in Gaza. The deaths of innocents is more than distressing; in many instances, it is appalling. But when reasonable discourse disintegrates into irrational hatred, a boundary has been violated.
Never mind that Milgrim and Lischinsky were entirely unconnected to the war in Gaza. So they were Israeli employees – so what? Milgram, 26, was known for her commitment to reconciliation. She held a certification in Religious Engagement in Peacebuilding from the United States Institute of Peace – founded by Congress in 1984 as “a nonpartisan, independent organization dedicated to protecting U.S. interests by helping to prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad.”
Lischinsky, 30, was born in Germany to a Christian mother and Jewish father. He considered himself a Messianic Jew, and whatever you think of that following, his commitment to Israel was unmistakable. He served in the IDF. And now he lies in a grave not far from Beit Zayit, a village west of Jerusalem where his family lives.
The gunman who extinguished their lives picked them at random – the first people he saw emerging from the museum on this May evening. He knew nothing about his victims, only that they were proximate. He fired round after round into his victims and then sat quietly among several museumgoers as he waited for the police to arrive — shouting “Free, free Palestine!” as he was led away.
All that was left was to stain their memories, or to engage in conspiracy speculation verging on the bizarre (“A cruel operation ran by Mossad to counter Pro-Palestinian movement in the US”/“Wouldn’t be at all surprised if Israel killed two of their embassy workers in a false flag operation just because they’re desperate for some good PR and continued pretext to keep the genocide going.”)
Still, it wasn’t all grotesquerie and disinformation. A decent proportion of these 684 comments condemned the murders as an act of heinous, despicable violence.
“This is truly heartbreaking,” one poster lamented. “Yaron and Sarah were both working towards such meaningful goals—building relationships and bringing peace. My thoughts are with their families and loved ones during this incredibly difficult time. We must continue to stand against hatred in all forms.”
In that humane spirit, I’ll leave you with words spoken by Cantor David Lipp during a brief memorial gathering on the morning of Friday, May 23 at the Trager Family JCC:
Sarah and Yaron’s work “was not about killing and was not about hate, but was about cooperation and building between Jews and Muslims and Israelis and Palestinians and Druze and Arabs. They imagined something better, and they worked towards something better.”
“Let us stand on the shoulders of what they lived for, so that their dying will not just be a totally unnecessary and horrific tragedy for them and their peoples. I’d like us to take a moment of silence to imagine a world that these two young people were trying to bequeath to us.”
May their memories be for a blessing.
Andrew Adler is the Managing Editor of Community.