Israeli Ambassador Recalls DC Embassy Murders

A little more than a week after two employees of Israel’s embassy in Washington were murdered, Israel’s ambassador to the United States visited Atlanta and described in detail his initial, stunned reaction to the killings.

The ambassador, Yechiel Leiter, who took up his appointment at the beginning of this year, told a crowd of about 250 at The Temple that word of the deaths came to him as the thoughts of his own son’s passing was still fresh in his memory. Less than two years ago, his son, a major in an elite special forces unit of Israel’s Air Force, was killed during the war in Gaza.

Ironically, the night he received word of the attack on the two employees he was being visited by one of the officers of the IDF who had initially conveyed the news of his son’s death. As is customary, she remained in close contact with the family to help allay their grieving. She and her husband were visiting them in the ambassador’s Washington home when Leiter first received word of the shootings shortly after 9 p.m. on May 21.

“I couldn’t have thought of anybody I wanted more to see than this woman who has showed me and my family such compassion for a year, who had always been there to give a hug and a word of encouragement, there she is standing next to me, when this jolting phone call I get that two of my employees are bleeding to death.”

The two young victims, Yaron Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen who grew up in Germany, and Sarah Milgrim, an American from Overland Park, Kan., had just attended a Young Diplomats evening, sponsored by the American Jewish Committee at Washington’s Capital Jewish Museum. The two were planning a trip to Israel the next week and the ambassador said Lischinsky had bought a ring and intended to propose to Milgrim while they were there.

“She was, what can I tell you? You know those people, when they come into the room, it lights up. There’s some people like that, right?” the ambassador told his Temple audience. “They don’t have to do anything much. Well, Sarah was one of those people. She didn’t have to say anything. All she did was walk into the room with her red hair and that smile, and the room lit up, and you felt good about life. Yaron, who worked a few doors down from my office as a research assistant to our Middle East policy analyst, was quiet, unassuming, very intelligent.”

When Leiter arrived on the scene of the attack, he was briefed by law enforcement about how the attack had come without warning. The alleged assailant, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago, had bought a gun there and packed it in his checked luggage on the flight to Washington. He was seen walking back and forth outside the museum before the shootings. and had specifically targeted Lischinsky and Milgrim as they departed from the museum with another couple.

“As they left the event together with another two employees of the embassy Yaron and Sarah were gunned down,” the ambassador related. “The couple they were with managed to escape by crawling under a car. And excuse me for the gruesome details, but they watched as Yaron and Sarah were crawling, trying to get out of the line of fire, and saw how the gunman went after them as they were crawling to make sure that he killed them. They saw, they watched. as the gunman finished them off, as the couple said.”

After he was arrested, Rodriguez was heard shouting “Free Palestine” and material supporting Palestinians was found in his Chicago apartment.

Two days before Ambassador Leiter spoke at The Temple, he flew to Kansas to attend Milgrim’s funeral. He said he wanted to be able to offer some solace and support to her family, just as he had been so supported when his son died.

“I’ve been asked ever since in a series of interviews, how does this happen?” the ambassador related. “Where does this come from? How does somebody convince himself so decidedly, so fanatically, that he has a right to shoot two people in the back because they identify with Israel in the name of ‘Free Palestine.’”

It was said that part of Milgrim’s work at the embassy was hosting the families of Oct. 7 hostages who visited the United States. She and Lischinsky were remembered for their commitment to Israel that was long and ran deep. And their deaths, the ambassador emphasized, will not deter the nation they loved.

“We’re going to take this pain, we’re going to turn it to perseverance. In that resilience, we’re going to continue to pursue peace despite the difficulties.”