The two young professionals who were shot at close range after leaving the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., on the evening of May 21 were “exploring their faith as regular worshippers at Ascension & St. Agnes Episcopal Church near Logan Circle,” Bishop Marian Edgar Budde of Washington said in a statement on May 22. The parish, steeped in the Anglo-Catholic tradition and led by its rector, the Rev. Dominique Peridans, is a mile away from the scene of the crime.
In remembering Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, young diplomats soon to be engaged and working for the Israeli Embassy, Peridans told The Living Church he found them “very thoughtful, very inquisitive, very kind, very prayerful.” He had seen them worship at the parish for the past eight months.
“We were just beginning to get to know one another, and I was hopeful that they would continue to be and become more and more part of this community and share their gifts,” Peridans said. He has offered his assistance to the Israeli Embassy and requested contact information for the victims’ families so he can express his condolences directly.
During a May 22 event at the Washington National Cathedral led by Budde and Tim Shriver, a former educator advocating to restore dignity in polarizing times, Budde led a moment of contemplation to “share our grief with those in our city mourning the murder.” The Washington bishop described the young couple in love as “dedicated humanitarians to the State of Israel and, from all accounts, were among the most inspired young people you would ever want to know.”
Lischinsky, 30, and Milgrim, 26, were leaving an event organized by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) for young diplomats at the Capital Jewish Museum when they were shot by a man. The couple died at the scene around 9 p.m. on May 21. A suspect, now in custody, reportedly said he did it for Gaza.
As is standard practice for Jewish organizations, the event’s location was shared only with those who registered in advance. According to a statement from AJC, the evening’s gathering focused on humanitarian diplomacy and how a coalition of organizations, including the Multifaith Alliance, which had a speaker at the event, is responding to crises throughout the Middle East and Africa.
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency said the killing is the first fatal attack at an American Jewish institution in several years.
Antisemitism, or prejudice against Jews, has skyrocketed since the October 7, 2023, massacre carried out by the terrorist organization Hamas. This deadliest atrocity against Jews since the Holocaust killed over 1,200 people and took 250 hostages.
A report released last month by the Anti-Defamation League, an organization committed to fighting antisemitism and other forms of hate, cited a total of 9,354 incidents of antisemitic assault, harassment, or vandalism across the U.S. in 2024—the highest since the ADL began collecting data in 1979.
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said the murder of Milgrim and Lischinsky “strikes a nerve because it comes after an unrelenting, ongoing campaign of hate and harassment targeting the Jewish community simply because of who we are and what we believe.”
Since the State of Israel began its military response to the October 7 attacks—waging an all-out war against Hamas in Gaza—more than 50,000 people have been killed and millions displaced. The war has sparked massive anti-Israel protests across the country.
Numerous reports have revealed that Jewish communities and Jewish-owned businesses have been targeted by protesters, fueled by the false assumption that all Jews—including those in the diaspora who have never set foot in the Middle East—support the Israeli government’s actions.
Other Episcopal leaders expressed their grief on social media.
“As a Christian and as a priest, I united my voice and heart with those who seek an end to every form of antisemitism in our world,” the Rev. Albert Cutie, rector of St. Benedict’s in Plantation, Florida, wrote on Facebook.
A statement by the Interfaith Center of New York, led by the Rev. Chloe Breyer, an associate priest at St. Philip’s Church in Harlem, urged “law enforcement to make sure the perpetrator is held accountable, and to protect all innocent people who may face backlash in the wake of this tragedy.”
A shrine for Lischinsky and Milgrim has been set up at Ascension & St. Agnes.
Reflecting on the tragedy, Peridans said society faces a challenge—one that must be confronted by all. That challenge is the temptation “to fall into simplistic categorizations of people and establish guilt by association.”
Jewishness, not to be confused with being a citizen of Israel, is an identity representing a diverse people with various cultural expressions and interpretations of Judaism. It is possible for some Jews to express interest in faith traditions beyond Judaism.
Caleb Maglaya Galaraga is The Living Church’s Episcopal Church reporter. His work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Broadview Magazine, and Presbyterian Outlook, among other publications.
