Mourners seeking connection gather at the killing site at capitals Jewish museum, sing and pray at vigil outside White House
The Times of Israel — Luke Tress — May 23, 2025
Mourners outside the White House in Washington, DC, May 22, 2025.(Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
WASHINGTON - Mourners trickled past the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, on Thursday, a day after an attacker shot dead two Israeli embassy staffers outside the building the night before. Some knelt at the scene with bouquets, others wrote notes to the victims in Hebrew and English, and a handful waved Israeli flags at an impromptu gathering across the street.
The mourners we're Jews and Christians from the city and the surrounding area. Several had driven up to an hour to visit the scene and pay their respects to the dead. Others we're seeking community and an outlet for a feeling of helplessness.
Jim Rose, from the nearby suburb of Great Falls, Virginia, said he had felt compelled to visit the scene because he is a part of the local Jewish community.
There was a shock, but there was no surprise, he said when he first heard about the killings.
He said his friends and family were overwhelmed by sadness, a feeling he shares, but my number one emotion is anger, an emotion, he said, that was based on fear.
To me, it was just a matter of time before something like this happened in our community, he said. I'm just frustrated that more wasn't done to prevent this.
You could just see it building, just with the rhetoric and what is allowed in protests, he said. The anger and the frustration is at those people in authority who either shrug this off or rationalize it, or compartmentalize it. I would like to see each and every one of them do more or step down and let somebody else do the job.
Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim (Courtesy)
The victims of the shooting, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, we're gunned down outside an event for young Jewish diplomats, this year focusing on resolving humanitarian crises in the Middle East, at the Capital Jewish Museum on Wednesday night. Lischinsky and Milgrim we're a couple and Lischinsky was planning to propose in Jerusalem next week.
The man charged with the shooting, Elias Rodriguez, shot the two in the back, then finished them off at close range, firing into Milgrim as she attempted to crawl away. After the killings, he told investigators, "I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza," according to court filings. Investigators recovered 21 empty bullet casings at the scene.
Sharon Separ, from Arlington, Virginia, said the violence and political climate reminded her of interwar Germany and had encouraged her to make a move to Israel for safety.
I was really disturbed. I have the feeling, more often than ever, it's a time to go. It's a time to just see the writing on the wall, she said.
I see a lot of fear and anxiety in my community, but I don't see people saying, Well, let's go to Israel, and that enrages me, she said.
Notes left for the victims of a deadly shooting in Washington, DC, May 22, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
A row of flowers, left sodden by intermittent rain, was piled near the entrance to the museum, while other bouquets we're arranged on a step around the corner, where the shooting took place. On a nearby planter we're handwritten notes to the victims, kept in place against the wind by small stones and candles, the ink blurred by the downpour.
Yaron and Sarah, we will work harder in your name, one of the notes said. LOVE, NOT HATE, said another sheet, weighed down by a wreath of white roses. Tattered bits of yellow police tape, left from the night before, remained wrapped around railings at the museum entrance and the blocks end.
Government officials at the scene also voiced their grief and frustration. Israel's ambassador to the US, Yechiel Leiter, recounted how he had received a knock on his door when his son was killed fighting in Gaza early in the war. On Wednesday, he said, he was the one informing parents that their children had been slain.
"Instead of gathering at a huppah, their families will be gathering at their graves," said US Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, who is Jewish.
US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said that, as a Jewish mother, her first thought upon hearing the news of the killings was that the victims could have been her children or staffers.
"We are a community that has consistently stood with other communities when hate is directed at them, and we have been joined not as often as we'd like by other communities, and so I hope desperately that our communities can come together," she said.
Pro-Israel Jewish and Christian demonstrators in Washington, DC, May 22, 2025.(Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
In addition to Jews, a group of pro-Israel Christians from an organization called the Philos Project showed up to support the Jewish community.
Simone Rizkallah, a Catholic from an Egyptian-Armenian family, said her community was devastated by the killings.
"Our experience in the Middle East is that there is a common enemy that doesn't like Jews or Christians. And so when I came to this country excited for religious freedom, for pluralism, and then to see that the same people, the same players, are against us here, too, on American soil, it's painful," she said.
I can't believe we're here for this. I can't believe this happened. What else needs to happen for the world to wake up? she said.
Yale Williams heard on the radio on Wednesday night about a shooting in the city, but didn't realize the attack was antisemitic until the morning when he checked his social media. He stood at the killing site wearing a Star of David over his t-shirt and an Israeli flag on his shoulders.
"I'm upset, frustrated, angry. It's just another example of what words can do because this didn't start yesterday, it didn't even start on October 7. It started way before that because of all the rhetoric against Israel," he said.
Mourners outside the White House in Washington, DC, May 22, 2025.(Luke Tress/Times of Israel)
I don't even know exactly what I'm angry at. It's anger at the people who have allowed this hate speech to continue under the guise of free speech. It's anger at Hamas for even having us in this situation. It's anger at almost everybody, he said. We're such a minority in the world in general that when we don't have anyone standing up for us, it's difficult.
Williams drove into the city after seeing messages in WhatsApp chats saying that people we're coming to visit the site. He was driven by a feeling of helplessness and seeking a sense of community.
Other Jews at the scene we're also looking for others to connect with. They traded phone numbers and discussed messages circulating about community gatherings. The number of mourners at the museum remained relatively small as the shock and chaos of the day made planning difficult.
The community came together later, though, at a vigil outside the White House as the sun set over the capital.
Organizers erected two posters showing Lischinsky and Milgrim shoulder to shoulder, with beaming smiles. A pool of candles flickered on the asphalt in front of the photos and in the background, the White House loomed, its white facade lit brightly and its flags at half mast. A group of tourists, oblivious to the sorrow, snapped pictures at the White House fence and a street performer played jazz on a saxophone in the distance.
An organizer encouraged attendees to hug each other and read out Psalm 23.
Even when I walk in the valley of darkness, I will fear no evil, he said.
Some in the crowd of hundreds embraced, huddled under umbrellas, with tears in their eyes and Israeli flags draped on their shoulders.
The crowd sang Hebrew songs together, including Oseh Shalom, Acheinu, and Israel's anthem, Hatikvah, or The Hope.
"All the world's a narrow bridge, and the essential thing is to have no fear at all," they sang.