Shooting of Israeli embassy staffers underscores US ‘era of violent populism'

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

CNN

38 minutes ago

CNN

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

In May, Bob Milgrim was taking one of his regular long walks with his wife Nancy in suburban Kansas City when something struck his mind. 'I said, 'Nancy, you know, our lives are perfect. We have two beautiful children, we couldn't ask for more.'' Their only small sadness was the feeling their daughter Sarah, 26, would likely not live close to their home in Prairie Village, Kansas, when she got married and they wouldn't get to babysit grandchildren as often as they would like. Less than a week later, dreams of grandchildren were gone, and the comfort of a perfect life was shredded. On May 21, Sarah was shot dead with her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. The gunman told arriving police officers, 'I did it for Gaza,' a witness said. The Milgrims went from musing about babies to burying their own child. From dreaming of their daughter's bright future to being left with only memories. For Bob, there is so much to remember and admire about his only daughter. 'She was everything. She did everything,' he told CNN, reeling off a proud father's list of Sarah's achievements in sports and music, and how she had sung in a choir in European cathedrals on a tour while in high school. She also was a beekeeper and volunteered to feed injured birds of prey at a rescue center, he said. And she had an early and enduring love for dogs. Some mornings Bob would find a young Sarah sleeping with the family pet in its crate. At other times, she would make random four-legged friends. 'She would bring stray dogs home,' he said. 'If she saw a dog without a collar, we'd have to find a home for it or locate the owner … She loved all forms of life.' 'Sarah was a light to the world from the very beginning.' Bob was getting ready to go to bed that Wednesday night last month when his phone lit up with news alerts of a shooting in Washington, DC. At first, he wasn't concerned, but each new piece of information that came out pointed more and more to Sarah and Yaron. The location of the attack was at the Capital Jewish Museum at F and 3rd in Northwest DC. He didn't know Sarah was there, but it was the kind of thing she might do — she often went to events after work. Then it was reported that staffers from the Israeli embassy were involved, and that it was an event for young professionals — just the kind of people Sarah reached out to. And then that a man and a woman had been killed together. 'I knew that Sarah and Yaron were the only couple from the embassy in that age category. And so then I began to become very concerned,' Bob said. He'd already called and texted Sarah but got no response. He called police and the FBI for information, only to be told everyone was responding to the shooting. Finally, someone asked if he could supply Sarah's passport information. He went to his bedroom to look for the copy he had, inadvertently waking his wife, Nancy. She tracked Sarah's phone to the museum. 'We pretty much knew it was her,' Bob said. At that moment a call from a Washington number gave the Milgrims a flash of hope that Yaron was phoning them. But it was the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, calling to tell them their daughter was dead. They told him they already knew. But Leiter had more news. Yaron had bought an engagement ring the week before. 'We knew they were very, very serious. We knew they were in love — their bond was unbelievable,' Bob said. He also knew the couple was planning to visit Israel the following week for Sarah to meet Yaron's family. But it was a surprise to learn that Yaron planned to propose in Jerusalem. Soon after her older brother Jacob had his bar mitzvah, Sarah told her parents she didn't want a big party for her own coming-of-age ceremony. But she did want it to be in Israel. Her bat mitzvah two years later was also the first time Bob had been to Israel, and he saw an almost immediate change in his then-teenaged daughter. 'From that point forward, for whatever reason, we don't know, she felt more comfortable in Israel than any place else,' he said. She spent summers and a college semester there, and volunteered for Tech2Peace, an organization that brought Israelis and Palestinians together and taught them technology skills. Sarah helped with the sharing of cultures and finding opportunities to bond, like camping in the Negev Desert, Bob said, adding that she also traveled to the West Bank and made friends with Palestinian women there. Sarah had experienced antisemitism at her high school, where someone once spray-painted swastikas on a building and where hateful jokes were aimed at her. As Jews, Bob said, 'we're always concerned' about the possibility of violence. When she started working at the Israeli embassy in Washington less than a month after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, she became familiar with the extensive security used there. Bob said he and Nancy had felt it would be OK for her to travel to Israel with the boyfriend she'd met at the embassy and whom she had first mentioned to her dad by saying, 'You're going to love this guy, he's a lot like you. He's a real gentleman.' As the relationship between the young couple became more serious, Sarah's parents tried to show him the best of Kansas City in the hopes that Yaron — who grew up in Germany and Israel — might be persuaded to stay in the US. But even though Yaron loved barbecue and Costco, Bob said they knew the couple would likely relocate to Israel. 'She loved Judaism and loved Israel,' Bob said of Sarah, his voice breaking, adding he hoped love would be her legacy. 'I want people to remember her and remember what she did and remember that she didn't hate anybody,' he said. 'She didn't hate Palestinians. She didn't hate Muslims. She loved them all, yet many people hated her … for being Jewish.' He talked of how people Sarah had been close to had cut off contact when she began working at the embassy, how they would even post hateful messages and how none of them offered condolences to him after her death. 'The people that hated her never stopped to ask her, how did she feel? And they never asked her, what is your viewpoint on how things in the Middle East should be settled? They just assumed that she was bad,' he said. A few weeks before his own family tragedy, Bob said he and Nancy were on one of the first flights into Reagan National Airport in Washington after it reopened following a military helicopter and passenger plane crash nearby that killed 67. 'I realized (dozens) of people had lost their lives and (I was) thinking about all the families and the horrific grief that they were going through. And I became emotional. And little did I know that a few months later I'd be going through the same thing.' Earlier this month, Bob and Nancy traveled to Washington, DC, to clean out Sarah's home. They had helped her to move in, and Bob remembered her excitement that day as she looked forward to all that was ahead, a future now unfulfilled. 'We were the first people to go into her apartment since the murder,' he said. 'It was like a freeze frame in time — the cup of coffee, half drunk, was on the counter. There was a little bit of coffee left in the coffee pot … it was one of the hardest, one of the most difficult days of my life, or Nancy's life.' They had also hoped to meet Yaron's siblings in Washington at a Kennedy Center performance by the US-Israel Opera Initiative that was dedicated to the slain couple. But the outside world intruded again when airports were closed in the Iran-Israel conflict and the Lischinsky family could not travel. One of Bob Milgrim's favorite memories is from a time in Sarah's childhood when she looked to him as a teacher. They were walking outside one morning when Sarah wondered aloud why the sidewalk was dry but the grass was wet even though it hadn't been raining. 'I had to explain dew to her, and she goes, 'Dad, you know everything!'' he remembered with a chuckle. After she was killed, Bob marveled at how much Sarah had taught him, too. 'I've learned how to be good and how to respect other people and how important it is for there to be love in the world and to see good in the world. And that's what Sarah saw,' he said. 'And since her tragic death, I've seen much more of it. I've seen much more good, and bad. 'Of course, the bad was horrific, and it could not have been any worse. But the outpouring of love, both from the Jewish community and all communities around the world is what's keeping us going right now. And it's been unbelievable.' Sarah has been laid to rest in Kansas City. Bob and Nancy have taken the pictures off the walls in Sarah's apartment, and the magnets off her refrigerator. They've kept some of her things and donated the rest. Now, Bob echoes the traditional Jewish message to the bereaved: zichronam l'vracha, or 'May their memory be a blessing.' 'Her memory is wonderful,' he said. 'And we need to have the courage to make it a blessing, so the world would be a better place.' Sarah's beloved goldendoodle Andy is now with her parents in Kansas. The dog was the first thing Bob thought of when a victim's assistance officer asked if he needed help with anything. 'We told them the dog was locked up somewhere,' Bob said. 'The agent said, 'We'll take care of getting Andy back to Kansas City somehow.'' The dog was found at Yaron's apartment in Washington and flown to Kansas by that evening. But for the Milgrims, the hole Sarah left is huge. 'The void of her personality and the aura of her being around us cannot be replaced. There's nothing that could fill that hole,' Bob said. 'The three of us, Nancy and Jacob and I, will do our best.' This story was reported by CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Meridith Edwards in Washington, DC, and written by CNN's Rachel Clarke in Atlanta.

CNN

40 minutes ago

CNN

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

In May, Bob Milgrim was taking one of his regular long walks with his wife Nancy in suburban Kansas City when something struck his mind. 'I said, 'Nancy, you know, our lives are perfect. We have two beautiful children, we couldn't ask for more.'' Their only small sadness was the feeling their daughter Sarah, 26, would likely not live close to their home in Prairie Village, Kansas, when she got married and they wouldn't get to babysit grandchildren as often as they would like. Less than a week later, dreams of grandchildren were gone, and the comfort of a perfect life was shredded. On May 21, Sarah was shot dead with her boyfriend Yaron Lischinsky as they were leaving an event at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC. The gunman told arriving police officers, 'I did it for Gaza,' a witness said. The Milgrims went from musing about babies to burying their own child. From dreaming of their daughter's bright future to being left with only memories. For Bob, there is so much to remember and admire about his only daughter. 'She was everything. She did everything,' he told CNN, reeling off a proud father's list of Sarah's achievements in sports and music, and how she had sung in a choir in European cathedrals on a tour while in high school. She also was a beekeeper and volunteered to feed injured birds of prey at a rescue center, he said. And she had an early and enduring love for dogs. Some mornings Bob would find a young Sarah sleeping with the family pet in its crate. At other times, she would make random four-legged friends. 'She would bring stray dogs home,' he said. 'If she saw a dog without a collar, we'd have to find a home for it or locate the owner … She loved all forms of life.' 'Sarah was a light to the world from the very beginning.' Bob was getting ready to go to bed that Wednesday night last month when his phone lit up with news alerts of a shooting in Washington, DC. At first, he wasn't concerned, but each new piece of information that came out pointed more and more to Sarah and Yaron. The location of the attack was at the Capital Jewish Museum at F and 3rd in Northwest DC. He didn't know Sarah was there, but it was the kind of thing she might do — she often went to events after work. Then it was reported that staffers from the Israeli embassy were involved, and that it was an event for young professionals — just the kind of people Sarah reached out to. And then that a man and a woman had been killed together. 'I knew that Sarah and Yaron were the only couple from the embassy in that age category. And so then I began to become very concerned,' Bob said. He'd already called and texted Sarah but got no response. He called police and the FBI for information, only to be told everyone was responding to the shooting. Finally, someone asked if he could supply Sarah's passport information. He went to his bedroom to look for the copy he had, inadvertently waking his wife, Nancy. She tracked Sarah's phone to the museum. 'We pretty much knew it was her,' Bob said. At that moment a call from a Washington number gave the Milgrims a flash of hope that Yaron was phoning them. But it was the Israeli ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, calling to tell them their daughter was dead. They told him they already knew. But Leiter had more news. Yaron had bought an engagement ring the week before. 'We knew they were very, very serious. We knew they were in love — their bond was unbelievable,' Bob said. He also knew the couple was planning to visit Israel the following week for Sarah to meet Yaron's family. But it was a surprise to learn that Yaron planned to propose in Jerusalem. Soon after her older brother Jacob had his bar mitzvah, Sarah told her parents she didn't want a big party for her own coming-of-age ceremony. But she did want it to be in Israel. Her bat mitzvah two years later was also the first time Bob had been to Israel, and he saw an almost immediate change in his then-teenaged daughter. 'From that point forward, for whatever reason, we don't know, she felt more comfortable in Israel than any place else,' he said. She spent summers and a college semester there, and volunteered for Tech2Peace, an organization that brought Israelis and Palestinians together and taught them technology skills. Sarah helped with the sharing of cultures and finding opportunities to bond, like camping in the Negev Desert, Bob said, adding that she also traveled to the West Bank and made friends with Palestinian women there. Sarah had experienced antisemitism at her high school, where someone once spray-painted swastikas on a building and where hateful jokes were aimed at her. As Jews, Bob said, 'we're always concerned' about the possibility of violence. When she started working at the Israeli embassy in Washington less than a month after the Hamas attacks of October 7, 2023, she became familiar with the extensive security used there. Bob said he and Nancy had felt it would be OK for her to travel to Israel with the boyfriend she'd met at the embassy and whom she had first mentioned to her dad by saying, 'You're going to love this guy, he's a lot like you. He's a real gentleman.' As the relationship between the young couple became more serious, Sarah's parents tried to show him the best of Kansas City in the hopes that Yaron — who grew up in Germany and Israel — might be persuaded to stay in the US. But even though Yaron loved barbecue and Costco, Bob said they knew the couple would likely relocate to Israel. 'She loved Judaism and loved Israel,' Bob said of Sarah, his voice breaking, adding he hoped love would be her legacy. 'I want people to remember her and remember what she did and remember that she didn't hate anybody,' he said. 'She didn't hate Palestinians. She didn't hate Muslims. She loved them all, yet many people hated her … for being Jewish.' He talked of how people Sarah had been close to had cut off contact when she began working at the embassy, how they would even post hateful messages and how none of them offered condolences to him after her death. 'The people that hated her never stopped to ask her, how did she feel? And they never asked her, what is your viewpoint on how things in the Middle East should be settled? They just assumed that she was bad,' he said. A few weeks before his own family tragedy, Bob said he and Nancy were on one of the first flights into Reagan National Airport in Washington after it reopened following a military helicopter and passenger plane crash nearby that killed 67. 'I realized (dozens) of people had lost their lives and (I was) thinking about all the families and the horrific grief that they were going through. And I became emotional. And little did I know that a few months later I'd be going through the same thing.' Earlier this month, Bob and Nancy traveled to Washington, DC, to clean out Sarah's home. They had helped her to move in, and Bob remembered her excitement that day as she looked forward to all that was ahead, a future now unfulfilled. 'We were the first people to go into her apartment since the murder,' he said. 'It was like a freeze frame in time — the cup of coffee, half drunk, was on the counter. There was a little bit of coffee left in the coffee pot … it was one of the hardest, one of the most difficult days of my life, or Nancy's life.' They had also hoped to meet Yaron's siblings in Washington at a Kennedy Center performance by the US-Israel Opera Initiative that was dedicated to the slain couple. But the outside world intruded again when airports were closed in the Iran-Israel conflict and the Lischinsky family could not travel. One of Bob Milgrim's favorite memories is from a time in Sarah's childhood when she looked to him as a teacher. They were walking outside one morning when Sarah wondered aloud why the sidewalk was dry but the grass was wet even though it hadn't been raining. 'I had to explain dew to her, and she goes, 'Dad, you know everything!'' he remembered with a chuckle. After she was killed, Bob marveled at how much Sarah had taught him, too. 'I've learned how to be good and how to respect other people and how important it is for there to be love in the world and to see good in the world. And that's what Sarah saw,' he said. 'And since her tragic death, I've seen much more of it. I've seen much more good, and bad. 'Of course, the bad was horrific, and it could not have been any worse. But the outpouring of love, both from the Jewish community and all communities around the world is what's keeping us going right now. And it's been unbelievable.' Sarah has been laid to rest in Kansas City. Bob and Nancy have taken the pictures off the walls in Sarah's apartment, and the magnets off her refrigerator. They've kept some of her things and donated the rest. Now, Bob echoes the traditional Jewish message to the bereaved: zichronam l'vracha, or 'May their memory be a blessing.' 'Her memory is wonderful,' he said. 'And we need to have the courage to make it a blessing, so the world would be a better place.' Sarah's beloved goldendoodle Andy is now with her parents in Kansas. The dog was the first thing Bob thought of when a victim's assistance officer asked if he needed help with anything. 'We told them the dog was locked up somewhere,' Bob said. 'The agent said, 'We'll take care of getting Andy back to Kansas City somehow.'' The dog was found at Yaron's apartment in Washington and flown to Kansas by that evening. But for the Milgrims, the hole Sarah left is huge. 'The void of her personality and the aura of her being around us cannot be replaced. There's nothing that could fill that hole,' Bob said. 'The three of us, Nancy and Jacob and I, will do our best.' This story was reported by CNN's Wolf Blitzer and Meridith Edwards in Washington, DC, and written by CNN's Rachel Clarke in Atlanta.

American students reveal how they fled the Israel-Iran war

USA Today

an hour ago

USA Today

American students reveal how they fled the Israel-Iran war

They left with excitement to visit a new country, connect with their Jewish identity and gain first-hand knowledge about one of the world's most storied regions. They left with memories of air raid sirens and bomb shelters. After Israel's surprise attack on Iran earlier this month, young Americans on study abroad programs and birthright trips to Israel made harrowing escapes back to the U.S. as the two countries traded missiles and the American military directly entered the conflict, bombing three Iranian nuclear sites. The thousands of escapees included 17 high schoolers from Arizona who huddled in bomb shelters before boarding a cruise ship to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus. A dozen Florida State University students studying geopolitics in the Middle East fled to Israel's mountainous Dead Sea region and crossed into Jordan. "It was a fear that I have never felt before," Aidan Fishkind, who was in Israel for a two-month birthright and internship program, told USA TODAY. "We had a missile land two miles from our hostel." The conflict, which has calmed under a delicate ceasefire, came during Israel's busiest tourism season – when birthright trips and programs affiliated with American universities were in full swing. According to the Birthright Israel Foundation, a nonprofit that sponsors young people to visit Israel, the group safely evacuated approximately 2,800 young adults from the country – many of them aboard a luxury cruise ship. The nonprofit canceled its scheduled programs through July 10, according to its website. Meanwhile, the spiraling war also sent Americans in Iran looking for a safe place to wait out Israeli bombardments. Hundreds of Americans fled the country as the conflict escalated, according to an internal State Department cable seen by Reuters last week. More: Iran-Israel conflict leaves Iranian Americans feeling helpless, hopeless 'I was scared for my life' Fishkind, of Detroit, Michigan, arrived in Israel on June 3 for what was to be a two-month trip where he'd intern in the marketing department at the Jaffa Institute, a nonprofit based in Tel Aviv. But a little after his first week, the war broke out and left him and his fellow students scrambling for safety. He recalled the first night after Israel launched its attack on Iranian nuclear sites and Iran responded with a barrage of missiles. He and his group of Detroit-area students received phone alerts about incoming rocket fire and rushed into rooms and stairwells designated "safe zones." Throughout the night, he heard deep dooms that shook the building. He considered whether the rumbles were the sound of Israel's air defense system intercepting rockets or Iranian missiles landing in the city. It was both, he would later learn. "I was scared for my life," he said. In Detroit, his mother, Jennifer Fishkind, booked him multiple flights back home. But one-by-one each flight was canceled as Israeli officials closed the country's airspace. "You just feel helpless being thousands of miles away," she said. "We kept telling him 'You're going to be OK. You're going to be OK.'" The next day, Fishkind and his group left for the Dead Sea region in the south, which was considered much safer than Tel Aviv. There, Fishkind stayed in a hotel and met scores of other students from across the U.S. and Canada. After almost a week, he boarded a cruise ship to Cyprus. Once on the island, he immediately got on a flight to Rome and, eventually, Detroit. Fishkind, who is preparing for his junior year at Elon University in North Carolina, said being back home has been an adjustment. The memories of the sirens and the night he spent sheltering from missiles will take time to process, he said. "When I got back home and laid in bed, I kept thinking 'Did that actually happen?'" Tallahassee student recounts memories of sirens and bunkers Madeline King traveled to Israel with a group of over 20 Florida State University students as part of a mission trip to examine and study the Israel-Gaza conflict. It was organized by FSU's Hillel, the university's largest Jewish campus organization. The group was set to leave Israel and return to Florida on Saturday, June 14 – the day after the Israeli military attacked Iran's nuclear program. The unrest left them temporarily stranded in Tel Aviv, which had become a target of Iranian missiles. "We would hear sirens through the night ... and at every time we would find ourselves going down to the bunkers," King told the Tallahassee Democrat, part of the USA TODAY Network. Like Fishkind, her group headed to the Dead Sea region near the West Bank. They then crossed into Jordan, where they boarded a flight bound for Cyprus. There, King and hundreds of others got on flights to Florida in an operation coordinated with the state's Division of Emergency Management agency. In all, more than 1,400 state residents have been evacuated from Israel by plane and passenger ferry, Florida state officials said last week. A tearful reunion The group of 17 high school students from Arizona arrived in Israel on June 4 and traveled through the country for a week, learning Jewish religious traditions and the culture and history of Israel. Like their fellow American students, the group soon discovered they couldn't leave by plane as they had originally intended. 'It is such a helpless, scary feeling to have your child thousands of miles away going into a bomb shelter multiple times a day as warning sirens ring out and missiles approach Israel,' Brett Kurland, a parent to one of the Arizona students, said in a statement, according to the Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network. With the help of Arizona Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly, the students managed to get on a luxury cruise ship departing for Cyprus. After an 18-hour voyage they made it to the island and then flew back to the U.S. Scores of families waited for the students at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on June 25. Some stood anxiously with homemade signs while others held flowers and balloons. When the students emerged from the jet bridge, the families cheered and embraced their loved ones in a tearful reunion. Similar scenes unfolded at international airports across the U.S. In Michigan, Jennifer Fishkind and a group of parents embraced their children as they descended from their plane at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport. "After all that, you're just waiting to get your arms around them," Fishkind said. "It was the best feeling."

Shooting of Israeli embassy staffers underscores US ‘era of violent populism'

Hashtags

Try Our AI Features

Comments

Related Articles

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

American students reveal how they fled the Israel-Iran war

Shooting of Israeli embassy staffers underscores US ‘era of violent populism'

Hashtags

Try Our AI Features

Comments

Related Articles

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

A father's grief when a ‘light to the world' is put out

American students reveal how they fled the Israel-Iran war

Get Started Now: Download the App