Israeli Embassy staff members fatally shot were about to get engaged
The victims of a fatal shooting outside the Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., have been identified as a young couple who worked at the Israeli Embassy and were on the verge of getting engaged.
The Israeli Foreign Ministry identified the victims as Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, and referred to them both as embassy staff members. The Israeli Embassy said the pair were “in the prime of their lives.”
“No words can express the depth of our grief and horror at this devastating loss,” the embassy said in a statement on social media. “Our hearts are with their families, and the embassy will be by their side during this terrible time.”
Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., told reporters the pair was a “beautiful couple,” and said Lischinsky had purchased an engagement ring “with the intention of proposing to his girlfriend next week in Jerusalem.” World leaders quickly condemned the slayings.
Sarah Lynn Milgrim
Milgrim, a 26-year-old American, was from Kansas. Her father, Robert Milgrim, said she started working for the embassy in November 2023 after earning a bachelor’s degree at Kansas University and two master’s degrees — one at American University in Washington, D.C., and the other at the United Nations for Peace University in Costa Rica. Her degrees focused on international studies and policy, he said, and she had been hired at the Israeli Embassy before the Oct. 7 Hamas terror attack that left 1,200 Israelis dead and touched off the war in Gaza.
“This is her first real job after finishing her six years of education,” Robert Milgrim told CBS News.
The Kansas University chapter of Hillel, the world’s largest Jewish campus life organization, remembered Milgrim as a “beloved alum” whose “bright spirit and passion for the Jewish community touched everyone fortunate enough to know her.” She served on the organization’s board of directors, KU Hillel said.
Before working for the embassy, Milgrim spent several summers in Israel where she worked with “Palestinian and Israeli groups to bring them together,” Robert Milgrim said. She made both Palestinian and Israeli friends on those trips, he said.
“She loves Israel and she loved everybody that lived in the Middle East,” Robert Milgrim said.
Robert Milgrim said his daughter met Lischinsky while earning a master’s degree at American University. The two started dating weeks after they met, and the family “loved” Lischinsky, her father said.
He said the couple was flying to Israel on Sunday to meet Lischinsky’s family in Jerusalem, adding that he was told Lischinsky had been planning to propose on the trip.
“We didn’t know that he was going to propose then,” Robert Milgrim said. “And the ambassador told us that he knew that he’d bought the ring and was going to present it to her in Jerusalem.”
Milgrim said on her LinkedIn page that her passion was “at the intersection of peacebuilding, religious engagement, and environmental work,” and said she was committed “to fostering understanding between different peoples.”
“No matter who this was, it would have been sad and hard and difficult, but to have it be somebody who embodied a spirit of peace, of love, of curiosity, of understanding, makes it extra hard,” her friend Sheila Katz told CBS News.
“She gave her all to everything. She was loving and compassionate,” Katz said.
Yaron Lischinsky
Lischinsky, 30, was an Israeli and German dual national. He was born in the German city of Nuremberg, according to veteran Israeli diplomat Ron Prosor, who says he had Lischinsky as a master’s student at Reichman University, a private university in Israel.
“He was a Christian, a true lover of Israel, served in the IDF, and chose to dedicate his life to the State of Israel and the Zionist cause,” Prosor said in a post on X. “He embodied the Judeo-Christian values and set an example for young people worldwide.”
Lischinsky moved to Israel when he was 16, according to his LinkedIn page, and was fluent in English, Hebrew and German.
Lore Herzog, who knew Lischinsky since 2018, said he “spoke fondly of growing up” in Bavaria, a region of southern Germany, and was “very much in love with his childhood home” there. He came from a large family, Herzog said.
“He loved them all dearly and spoke about them all the time,” Herzog said.
Herzog remembered Lischinsky as a “very morally upright person with a very strong sense of justice.” The two met while living in Jerusalem.
“Yaron was super cheerful and seemed to really love everything he did,” said Herzog, who now lives in Amsterdam. “It was his dream to work in politics and international relations.”
On his LinkedIn profile, Lischinsky said he advocated for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding. He said that he was an “ardent believer” in deepening Israel’s ties with the Arab world through the U.S.-brokered agreements known as the Abraham Accords.
Suspect in custody
Elias Rodriguez has been named as a suspect in the shooting and is currently in custody, officials said. He was charged on Thursday with two counts of first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials, causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence. All are felonies, and the murder charges carry up to life in prison or the death sentence, if he is convicted.
Rodriguez, a 30-year-old from Chicago, was initially “observed pacing back and forth outside of the museum” before he approached a group of four people, “produced a handgun,” and shot Lischinsky and Milgrim, Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela A. Smith said in a news briefing.
Rodriguez entered the Jewish Museum immediately after the shooting, and was arrested by museum security, Smith said. Witness video shows Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine” while being arrested.
Rodriguez had discarded the weapon used in the shooting, but told police where it was. It has since been recovered, Smith said.
Rodriguez also “chanted ‘free, free Palestine,’ while in custody,” Smith said.
Metropolitan Police said Rodriguez didn’t pop up on an initial search of crime databases and wasn’t on the radar of law enforcement agencies. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said the city’s police department and the FBI will be investigating the shooting.