What is the Capital Jewish Museum? What to know about site of fatal DC shooting
The staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, were locally employed staff according to the Israeli foreign ministry. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. told reporters the pair were soon-to-be engaged.
Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith said a man, identified as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, shot at a group of four people with a handgun, hitting both Lischinsky and Milgrim. He was seen pacing outside the museum prior to the shooting, Reuters reported, and chanted "Free Palestine, Free Palestine", after being taken into custody by event security after having entered the museum.
The museum is located 1.3 miles from the White House in Washington, D.C., in a busy part of the city packed with federal offices and museums.
"We are deeply saddened and horrified by the senseless violence outside the Museum this evening," the Capital Jewish Museum posted in a statement on Instagram late Wednesday night. "Our condolences and heartfelt sympathies go to the victims and their families."
The Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum says on its website that it "explores the Jewish experience in the national capital region" by connecting the past to the present via "thought-provoking exhibitions, dynamic programming, and creative public experiences."
The museum, once the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington, reopened as the Lillian and Albert Small Capital Jewish Museum on June 9, 2023. The four-floor building incorporates Washington, DC's oldest synagogue, with the 146-year-old historic brick synagogue moved and restored to sit alongside the modern museum building at the corner of 3rd and F Streets NW.
"The Museum's collection includes more than 24,000 digital and print photographs, 1,050 objects, and 800 linear feet of archival materials from the 1850s to the present day, including oral histories, personal papers, and business and organizational records," the museum announced upon its 2023 opening. "These collections provide a multifaceted portrait of local Jewish life and form the base of the inaugural exhibitions and also provide research materials for scholars, genealogists, students, and the general public."
Current and upcoming exhibitions include: "LGBT Jews in the Federal City" and "What is Jewish Washington." Previous events explored the life of former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the impact of the Jewish deli on American cuisine, and Jewish comics.
The event the two staffers attended Wednesday night was held by the American Jewish Committee, an advocacy group that supports Israel and confronts antisemitism, according to its website. The 'Young Diplomats Reception' was held from 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET for Jewish young professionals and the D.C. diplomatic community, according to the event tickets, themed "turning pain into purpose." The reception invited members of the Multifaith Alliance and nonprofit organization IsraAID to discuss "humanitarian diplomacy" and responses to humanitarian crises in the Middle East and North Africa.
The museum is closed today, Thursday, May 22, following the shooting. Its regular hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. ET Wednesday through Sunday.
Contributing: Reuters.
Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@usatoday.com and on X @KathrynPlmr.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What to know about capital Jewish museum after Israelis killed
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Atlantic
7 minutes ago
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The Death of Democracy Promotion
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Today, Vučić has risen in the ranks to become Serbia's president—an apologist for Russia who attacks the press, has been accused of nurturing close ties to organized crime, and is rapidly dragging his country toward authoritarianism. Vučić is not Milošević—he has not led his country into genocidal wars or faced judgment for war crimes at The Hague—but until recently, he might have expected that his authoritarian style would make relations with Washington rocky. That time is past. Instead of harshly condemning Serbia's abuses, America's president, Donald Trump, will build a Trump Tower Belgrade on top of the defense buildings' ruins. 'Belgrade welcomes a Global Icon,' the slick website for Trump Belgrade proclaims. 'TRUMP. Unrivaled Luxury.' The contract for the project has been signed with Affinity Partners, Jared Kushner's investment firm, which is largely funded with billions of dollars in cash from Saudi Arabia. This story is the material expression of the second Trump administration's turn against a long-standing tradition of Western democracy promotion—and of an embrace of conflicts of interest from which the world's despots can only take inspiration. The authoritarians who govern small countries such as Serbia no longer need to fear the condemnation, much less the bombs, of the American president when they crack down on their opponents, enrich themselves, or tighten their grip on power. On the contrary—the American flirtation with similar practices emboldens them. With Trump's unapologetic foreign policy in his second term, American democracy promotion is effectively dead. Prior to the Soviet Union's collapse, Western diplomats cared far more about whether a dictator was an ally or adversary to the Soviets than about the quality of a country's elections or its respect for human rights. 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Darren Walker's new book is still hopeful despite growing inequality as he leaves Ford Foundation
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And he described President Donald Trump's administration's first six months as 'disorienting' for a sector he successfully pushed to adopt more ambitious and just funding practices. Despite that bleak picture, Walker embraces the characterization of his upcoming collection as patriotic. 'My own journey in America leaves me no option but to be hopeful because I have lived in a country that believed in me,' he said. Walker recently discussed his tenure and the book's call for shared values with the Associated Press inside his Ford Foundation office — where an enlarged picture of a Black child taken by Malian portrait photographer Seydou Keïta still hangs, one of many underrepresented artists' works that populated the headquarters under his leadership. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. Q: Upon becoming Ford Foundation's president, you suggested that 'our most important job is to work ourselves out of a job' — a 2013 statement you include in the book. How would you grade your efforts? A: The past 12 years have been both exhilarating and exhausting. Exhilarating because there's never been a more exciting time to be in philanthropy. And exhausting because the political, socioeconomic dynamics of the last 12 years are very worrisome for our future. Philanthropy can play a role in helping to strengthen our democracy. But philanthropy can't save America. I would probably give myself a B or a B-. I don't think where we are as a nation after 12 years is where any country would want to be that had its eye on the future and the strength of our democracy. Q: Is there anything you would do differently? A: In 2013 and those early speeches, I identified growing inequality as a challenge to the strength of our democracy. And a part of that manifestation of growing inequality was a growing sense of disaffection — from our politics, our institutions, our economy. For the first time, a decade or so ago, we had clear evidence that working class white households were increasingly downwardly mobile economically. And the implications for that are deep and profound for our politics and our democracy. We started a program on increasing our investments in rural America, acknowledging some of the challenges, for example, of the trends around the impacts of the opioid epidemic on those communities. I underestimated the depth and the collective sense of being left behind. Even though I think I was correct in diagnosing the problem, I think the strategy to respond was not focused enough on this population. Q: Many people credit you for using Ford Foundation's endowment to increase grantmaking during the pandemic. Is that sort of creativity needed now with the new strains faced by the philanthropic sector? A: One of the disappointments I have with philanthropy is that we don't take enough risk. We don't innovate given the potential to use our capital to provide solutions. I do think that, in the coming years, foundations are going to be challenged to step up and lean in in ways that we haven't since the pandemic. The 5% payout is treated as a ceiling by a lot of foundations and, in fact, it's a floor. During these times when there's so much accumulated wealth sitting in our endowments, the public rightly is asking questions about just how much of that we are using and towards what end. Q: Where do you derive this sense of 'radical hope' at the end of your book? A: As a poor kid in rural Texas, I was given the license to dream. In fact, I was encouraged to dream and to believe that it will be possible for me to overcome the circumstances into which I was born. I've lived on both sides of the line of inequality. And I feel incredibly fortunate. But I'm also sobered by the gap between the privileged and the poor and the working-class people in America. It has widened during my lifetime and that is something I worry a lot about. But I'm hopeful because I think about my ancestors who were Black, enslaved, poor. African Americans, Black people, Black Americans have been hopeful for 400 years and have been patriots in believing in the possibility that this country would realize its aspirations for equality and justice. That has been our North Star. Q: Heather Gerken, the dean of Yale's law school, was recently named as your successor. Why is it important to have a leader with a legal background and an expertise in democracy? A: She is the perfect leader for Ford because she understands that at the center of our work must be a belief in democracy and democratic institutions and processes. She is also a bridge builder. She is a coalition builder. She's bold and courageous. I'm just thrilled about her taking the helm of the Ford Foundation. It is a signal from the Ford Foundation Board of Trustees that we are going to double down on our investment and our commitment to strengthening, protecting and promoting democracy. Q: Youtold AP last year that, when you exited this building for the last time, you'd only be looking forward. What does 'forward' mean to you now? A: I have resolved that I don't want to be a president or a CEO. I don't need to be a president of CEO. I think leaders can become nostalgic and hold onto their own history. Now there's no doubt, I know, that my obituary is going to say, 'Darren Walker, the president of the Ford Foundation.' That's the most important job I'll ever have. But hopefully I'll be able to add some more important work to that. ___
The Hill
8 minutes ago
- The Hill
Two Israeli rights groups say their country is committing genocide in Gaza
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — Two prominent Israeli rights groups on Monday said their country is committing genocide in Gaza, the first time that local Jewish-led organizations have made such accusations against Israel during nearly 22 months of war. The claims by B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel add to an explosive debate over whether Israel's military offensive in Gaza — launched in response to Hamas' deadly Oct. 7, 2023, attack — amounts to genocide. The Palestinians, their supporters and international human rights groups make that claim, and the International Court of Justice is hearing a genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel. But in Israel, founded in the wake of the Holocaust, even the government's strongest critics have largely refrained from making such accusations. That's because of the deep sensitivities and strong memories of the Nazi genocide of Europe's Jews, and because many in Israel view the war in Gaza as a justified response to the deadliest attack in the country's history and not an attempt at extermination. Shattering a taboo in Israel The rights groups, while prominent and respected internationally, are considered in Israel to be on the political fringe, and their views are not representative of the vast majority of Israelis. But having the allegation of genocide come from Israeli voices shatters a taboo in a society that has been reticent to criticize Israel's conduct in Gaza. Guy Shalev, director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, said the Jewish-Israeli public often dismisses accusations of genocide as antisemitic or biased against Israel. 'Perhaps human rights groups based in Israel, and coming to this conclusion, is a way to confront that accusation and get people to acknowledge the reality,' he said. Israel asserts that it is fighting an existential war and abides by international law. It has rejected genocide allegations as antisemitic. It is challenging such allegations at the International Court of Justice, and it has rejected the International Criminal Court's allegations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant committed war crimes in Gaza. Both face international arrest warrants. Israel's government on Monday didn't immediately comment on the reports by B'Tselem and PHRI. Israeli officials largely blame civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying it uses civilians as shields by embedding militants in residential areas. The reports echo international claims The rights groups, in separate reports released jointly, said Israel's policies in Gaza, statements by senior officials about its goals there and the systematic dismantling of the territory's health system contributed to their conclusion of genocide. Their claims echoed those of previous reports from international rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Like other rights groups, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have not been allowed into Gaza during the war. Their reports are based on testimonies, documents, eyewitnesses and consultations with legal experts. Hamas' attack on Israel that started the war sparked a shift in the country's policy toward Palestinians in Gaza from 'repression and control to destruction and annihilation,' B'Tselem said. The group has long been outspoken about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. It halted cooperation with the military nearly a decade ago, saying the army's investigations into wrongdoing weren't serious, and it has accused Israel of being an apartheid state. The PHRI report was a detailed, legal-medical analysis focusing on what it called the step-by-step dismantling of Gaza's health and life-sustaining systems including electricity, clean water and access to food. Its report says Israel has committed three of the acts of genocide defined by international law, including 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.' The Israeli rights groups said repeated statements by Israeli officials and the military endorsing the total destruction, starvation and permanent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, combined with policies on the ground, have demonstrated that Israel is intentionally trying to destroy Palestinian society. A 'painful' conclusion The term 'genocide' strikes a chord in Israel, where Israelis grow up learning about the Holocaust and hearing survivors' harrowing stories, while promising it would never happen again. The 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the murder by Nazi Germany of 6 million Jews. It defines genocide as acts 'committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.' 'As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, it's very painful for me to be reaching this conclusion,' said Shalev from PHRI. But after growing up in a society where the Holocaust was so important, it demands some kind of responsibility, he said. Until now, Israeli criticism of the war in Gaza has been focused on Netanyahu and whether his wartime decision-making has been politically motivated and delayed the return of hostages — 50 of them still in Gaza. Broader scrutiny of Israel's conduct in Gaza has been limited for multiple reasons. Despite the vast destruction and death in the territory and Israel's growing international isolation, most Israelis have believed for much of the war in its righteousness. And with most Jewish Israelis serving in the army, it's difficult for most people to fathom that their relatives in uniform could be carrying out genocide. Some soldiers, however, have refused to fight in the war. Jeffrey Herf, a historian who has published much on antisemitism, said the allegation of genocide doesn't take into account that there is a war between two parties. He said it ignores Hamas as a military force and Israel's right to defend itself. Israelis' focus is on the hostages, not Palestinians After groups like B'Tselem in recent years accused Israel of apartheid, more mainstream voices in Israel also picked up the claim, although in less sweeping ways. Israeli historian Tom Segev said he's not sure the new reports and their allegations will have an impact on the public. 'The major thing for Israelis is a question of the hostages, not necessarily the fate of the population in Gaza,' he said. But he said what's happening in Gaza is undermining the ideological and moral justification for the existence of Israel. The rights groups said the international community hasn't done enough to protect Palestinians and are calling on the world, including Israelis who have stayed silent, to speak up. 'We have an obligation to do everything we can to speak the truth about this, to stand by the victims,' said Sarit Michaeli, the international director for B'Tselem.
