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Two Promising Lives Cut Short by a Gunman Fixated on Gaza
(Wall Street Journal) Joshua Chaffin - Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were shot dead outside the Capital Jewish Museum on May 21. Lischinsky was a Christian who grew up in Germany and moved to Israel with his family as a teenager. He had moved to Washington, D.C., in 2022 to work at the Israeli Embassy, where co-workers recalled him as the first to arrive at work most days and eager to take on any task. That included volunteering to screen the gruesome footage from the Hamas attack on Israel. Milgrim grew up in a progressive Jewish community in Prairie Village, Kansas. After Milgrim and Lischinsky exited the Jewish Museum, footage from surveillance cameras showed them poised to enter a crosswalk at 3rd and F streets when Rodriguez walked past. He turned, pulled a 9mm pistol from his waistband and began firing at them from behind. Both victims fell to the ground. Milgrim would attempt to crawl away but Rodriguez pursued her and fired again, according to police. Then he reloaded his gun and, when she attempted to rise, continued to shoot. Police recovered 21 9mm casings at the scene. Dana Walker, director of the American Jewish Committee's Access Global program for young professionals, spent a week in Morocco with Milgrim. She recalled her friend on long bus rides, always sitting with someone new and often engaged in deep conversation. "She was someone who believed so deeply in peace-building," Walker said. "This was her calling."