At about 9pm a gunman opened fire outside the Capital Jewish Museum as people exited an event for young Jews working in foreign policy. He murdered two of them Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky, employees of the Israeli embassy. Friends say Lischinsky had bought a ring and planned to propose to Milgrim next week in Jerusalem.
“Free Palestine. I did it for Gaza,” said the suspect, Elias Rodriguez, who pulled out a red keffiyah, according to a witness. We don’t know if he had identified his victims or would have shot at anyone leaving the Jewish museum.
As it happens, Lischinsky was an Israeli Christian who called Israel “the only place in the (Middle East) where Christians can thrive”.
Milgrim, an American Jew, worked to build friendships between Israelis and Palestinians as a path to peace. The event they attended was a panel on multi-faith humanitarian efforts to aid Gaza and other Arab war zones.
Many Americans don’t realise it, but Jewish schools, synagogues and the like in the US have long required serious security. It’s only getting worse. A study of 63 Orthodox Jewish schools found that the average security cost in 2022-23 was $US184,000 a year. That has risen to $US339,000 ($527,000) in 2024-25.
Many Jewish events now keep their locations private.
A purported manifesto from the suspect recites the usual slanders about Israel, though new ones are popping up all the time. This week a United Nations humanitarian chief claimed 14,000 Gazan babies could starve to death in the next 48 hours. All now concede that’s bogus, but not before it went viral.
In 2017, the newspaper of the Party for Socialism and Liberation identified the suspected gunman as a member, though it now disavows him and says he’s been out of contact since. The PSL, a communist group with links to China, has been a major organiser of anti-Israel rallies, including one in Times Square on October 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Hamas death squads.
If that sounds far out, consider what the campus fixture Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) did on October 8. “Today, we witness a historic win for the Palestinian resistance,” it told its chapters, and provided them materials for a “Day of Resistance” at colleges. A pamphlet depicted a Hamas paraglider alongside student protesters, all waging one struggle.
We don’t know to whom the shooter listened or whether he had a history of mental illness. But the rise of Soviet-style anti-Zionism, including enthusiasm for the total destruction of Israel and efforts to ostracise its domestic supporters, is corrosive to America and is stirring up old dangers for Jews. People of all faiths and political views have a share of the responsibility to push back.
The Wall Street Journal
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Since the October 7 massacre, the chant has rung out on campuses and at protests: “Globalise the intifada.” Perhaps some people at those rallies didn’t know what the phrase meant, but the leaders must have. What happened late on Wednesday in Washington is a terrible warning.