Soldiers on the Battlefield
Who were Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim?
Today we pay tribute to Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, who were gunned down last night in a despicable terrorist attack in front of the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.
Honoring Lischinsky and Milgrim is a bittersweet undertaking. Bitter in that their lives were so cruelly stolen from them in the prime of youth. Sweet in that the world was privileged to have two such individuals living among us, if even for a short time.
Lischinsky and Milgrim were colleagues at the Israeli Embassy in Washington. Next week they were planning to travel to Jerusalem, where Lischinsky intended to ask Milgrim to marry him. He had already bought the ring.
“The ironic part,” said Milgrim’s grieving father, “is that we were worried for our daughter’s safety in Israel. But she was murdered three days before going.”
Yaron Lischinsky grew up in Germany and moved to Israel at age sixteen.
The family are Messianic Jews, that is Jews who recognize Jesus Christ as the messiah.
Lischinsky served three years in the Israel Defense Forces, and then obtained a bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Asian Affairs from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and a Master’s in Diplomacy and Conflict Studies from Reichman University in Herzliya. Since 2022, he served as a research assistant at the embassy.
An earnest worker for peace, Lischinsky wrote,
I'm an ardent believer in the vision that was outlined in the Abraham Accords, and believe that expanding the circle of peace with our Arab neighbors and pursuing regional cooperation is in the best interest of the State of Israel and the Middle East as a whole. To this end, I advocate for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding.
When it came to regional cooperation, interfaith dialogue, and intercultural understanding, he walked the walked. Last year, for example, he participated in the annual conference of the National Union for Democracy in Iran, one of the leading organizations fighting for the overthrow of the mullahs. “Israel stands with the brave people of Iran,” he wrote.
Lischinsky was thankful for America’s unwavering support for Israel. You’ve probably seen the photo—prominently featured in today’s news—of Lischinsky and Milgrim together. But you may not know the context. It was taken earlier this month, at the embassy’s Israel Independence Day celebration. Lischinsky posted it on X, with the caption, “We are deeply grateful for the historic alliance with our steadfast partner, the United States and the great American people, who have stood by our side.”
Indeed he was on X daily, promoting the State of Israel and refuting the poisonous libels spread by anti-Semites. His last two entries, on the day he died, were reposts attacking the false claim made by UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher (since retracted) that 14,000 babies in Gaza were going to die in the next two days.
But not all Lischinsky’s posts were related to the Middle East. There were also quotes from Madison, Tocqueville, and Thomas Sowell, and photos of Washington’s cherry trees in bloom. A friend from his Reichman days explained that his love of cherry blossoms stemmed from their mutual interest in Japan.
After the murder, the Israeli Foreign Minister, Gideon Sa’ar talked to Lischinsky’s father. The elder Lischinsky told him that his son “was a warrior on the diplomatic front who fell just like a soldier on the battlefield.”
Sadly, Sarah Milgrim experienced anti-Semitism while still a high school student in Prairie Village, Kansas: vandals defaced several school outbuildings with swastikas. Interviewed by local TV at the time, Milgrim said, “It’s so ignorant that you would bring up a symbol like that, that would bring so much pain to people. It’s not OK.”
“You know,” she added, “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.” Still, she sought a silver lining. “I hope they learn their lesson, and I hope they learn to be more tolerable, nicer people.”
Milgrim earned her BA in Environmental Studies from the University of Kansas where she served on the Hillel Board of Trustees. Like so many young, American Jews, she took the Birthright tour of Israel. She obtained an MA in Natural Resources and Sustainable Development from the University for Peace, and a second MA, this one in International Affairs, from American University.
Like Lischinsky, Milgrim was a committed peacemaker. In her LinkedIn profile, she wrote, “My passion lies at the intersection of peacebuilding, religious engagement, and environmental work.” She spent a year in Development and Program Education for Tech2Peace, which, according to its website, “provides high-tech and entrepreneurial training alongside conflict dialogue to young Palestinians and Israelis.”
Milgrim joined the Israeli Embassy in November 2023. She worked for the Department of Public Diplomacy, where she was known for her proficiency at organizing conferences. These included a White House meeting last year on Hamas terrorists’ use of sexual violence against women as a weapon of war. “The lack of condemnation from the world,” she wrote, “is the disgusting reality for the Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and Druze women of Israel.”
If you’ve ever organized an event, you know how stressful it can be. But according to one person who worked with Milgrim, Josh Maxey of the Bet Mishpacha synagogue, “Sarah never sweated. She just operated with such class and calm.”
Lischinsky and Milgrim cared about the plight of the downtrodden right up to the end. According to the Times of Israel, the event they attended last night featured speakers on “humanitarian diplomacy and how a coalition of organizations — from the region and for the region — are working together in response to humanitarian crises throughout the Middle East and North Africa.”
The event was titled “Turning Pain into Purpose.”
I sincerely hope that those who knew and loved Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, and those of us who only knew them from news accounts, are able to do just that.
May their memory be a blessing.
Sources:
Yaron L., LinkedIn, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/in/yaron-lischinsky/.
Sarah Milgrim, LinkedIn, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarah-milgrim/.
Yarón Lischinsky, X.com, https://x.com/yaron_li.
Mathilda Heller, “'Full of light': Remembering Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim,” The Jerusalem Post, updated May 22, 2025, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://www.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/article-855044.
Lexi Sutter, “Shawnee Mission School District & police investigating vandalism at Shawnee Mission East,” KSHB, updated February 25, 2017, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://www.kshb.com/news/local-news/shawnee-mission-school-district-police….
Benyamin Cohen, “‘He was a mensch’: Slain Messianic Jew remembered as bridge-builder,” Forward, May 22, 2025, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://forward.com/news/722632/yaron-lischinsky-dc-shooting-messianic-jew/.
John Yoon, Isabel Kershner, & Natan Odenheimer, “They Were Days From Getting Engaged. Then They Were Killed in D.C.,” The New York Times, updated May 22, 2025, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/22/world/middleeast/israel-embassy-dc-shooting….
“Event targeted in DC shooting was AJC’s Young Diplomats Reception, about responses to humanitarian crises,” The Times of Israel, May 22, 2025, downloaded May 22, 2025, https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/event-targeted-in-dc….
Thank you for sharing the stories of these two young people.