‘Heartbreaking’: Young People Honor Couple Slain Outside Jewish Museum

Adrian Huizenga stood on Thursday afternoon outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., where less than 24 hours earlier, a couple—Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim—were fatally shot.  

“It’s just so sad, just heartbreaking that … you see this rhetoric and this antisemitic violence going on that is very clearly targeting Jewish people,” Huizenga, 26, who knew Milgrim in a work context as young professionals in Washington, told The Daily Signal.  

“We as a country should all be able to stand against this kind of violence and hate,” Huizenga said at a gathering outside the museum Thursday afternoon honoring Lischinsky, 30, and Milgrim, 26.   

Speaking as a Christian, Huizenga said, “I love Jesus, and Jesus was Jewish, and so the Jewish people are a really important part of my Christian faith.”  

The gathering was organized by Philos Catholic, an arm of the Philos Project, to bring Christians and Jews together in the wake of the shooting.  

“We’re absolutely devastated by what happened last night and wondering what else has to happen for the West to wake up,” Simone Rizkallah, the director of Philos Catholic, told The Daily Signal. 

Lischinsky and Milgrim worked at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and Lischinsky planned to propose to Milgrim in Jerusalem next week.

The couple was leaving an event at the small museum Wednesday evening when they were shot. Elias Rodriguez, a 30-year-old from Chicago, shouted “Free, free Palestine” as law enforcement took him into custody immediately after the shooting. He has been charged with first-degree murder.

“For him to be taken away from us so soon is really shocking,” Francis de Beixedon, 23, said of Lischinsky, who he met only weeks before at a program for young national security professionals in Washington.

Jessica Costescu, 23, also met Lischinsky at the same national security program and said he was “genuinely such a great person,” adding, “It is just heartbreaking to see that antisemitism does not rest, and it's real, and it's in our nation's capital, and if this isn't a wake-up call, I don’t know what else is.” 

Anna Beth Havenar lived in Israel for a few years and had just arrived in Washington from Atlanta on Wednesday night for a brief vacation with a friend when she heard about the tragic shooting.  

Even though Havenar and her friend did not know the couple, she said they “wanted to do something.”  

“I hate that these things are happening so often,” Havenar, 31, said, adding, “We have to speak out. That’s the only way these things change.”  

While many in the crowd, including Havenar, professed to be Christian or Jewish, some Muslims were also in the crowd and condemned the killings.

“My heart really, really breaks for this horrendous event, and killing of innocent people is not justified at all, and the people who are doing this, they’re … barbaric,” Hina Akhtar, 41, a professing Muslim and volunteer with the American Muslim & Multifaith Empowerment Council, told The Daily Signal.  

The Metropolitan Police Department announced Thursday that it will increase its presence at religious institutions across Washington out of an abundance of caution.

U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says authorities believe the shooter acted alone, but the investigation is ongoing.