The two Israeli embassy staffers murdered by a terrorist shouting “Free Palestine” outside an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, Wednesday night were a Jewish-Christian couple.
Yaron Lischinsky, 28, was Christian and “worked in the political department of the Israeli Embassy in Washington,” according to the Times of Israel.
The New York Times added:
He grew up in a culturally mixed family with a Jewish father and a Christian mother, and was a practicing Christian, according to Ronen Shoval, the dean of the Argaman Institute for Advanced Studies in Jerusalem, where Mr. Lischinsky participated in a yearlong program in classical liberal conservative thought after earning a master’s degree in government and diplomacy.
“He was a devout Christian,” Dr. Shoval said, “but he had tied his fate to the people of Israel.”
He was killed alongside his girlfriend, Sarah Lynn Milgrim, who was Jewish.
Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter said at a press conference that Lischinsky had bought a ring earlier in the day to propose to Milgrim in Jerusalem, where they had planned to travel next week.
The attack is being described as an antisemitic act, given the venue, and given that the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, 30, of Chicago, was shown on video shouting “Free, free Palestine” and other slogans as he was taken away in handcuffs. He also dropped a keffiyeh, the traditional checked headscarf that has been appropriated by Palestinian terrorists to hide their identities, and that is often worn by anti-Israel radicals.
Lischinsky had “a Master in Government, Diplomacy & Strategy from Reichman University and a Bachelor in International Relations from the Hebrew University,” according to a bio on the Times of Israel blog. One of his entries there is a defense of President Donald Trump’s foreign policy legacy, after his first term: “I would suggest Trump left America (and the world) better off than how he found it when he first entered office.”
Milgrim held “a master’s degree in international studies from American University and an additional master’s degree in natural resources and sustainable development from the United Nations University of Peace,” the Times of Israel noted. She had worked in Israel, conducting “research on peacebuilding theory, emphasizing grassroots initiatives in the Israeli-Palestinian region,” and was passionate about Israeli-Palestinian peace.
The event outside of which Lischinsky and Milgrim were murdered was the American Jewish Committee’s Young Diplomats Reception, focused on how to promote humanitarian aid despite the ongoing conflict.
