'It's a Nightmare': 3 Rabbis on Israeli Embassy Aides Killed

Yahoo

23-05-2025

Security officers surround the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC, on May 22, 2025, following a shooting that left two people dead Credit - Brendan Smialowski—AFP via Getty Images
The Jewish community around the U.S. is reeling from the fatal shooting on Wednesday of two Israeli Embassy employees outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. The Justice Department has charged 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez with first-degree murder and other crimes. According to court documents, Rodriguez allegedly told police, 'I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.'
A day after the targeted killings of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, TIME spoke with three rabbis as they were grappling with the aftermath of the tragedy. The religious leaders—two men and one woman—discussed the shooting amid a broader rise in anti-Semitic activity, and their thoughts on where local and federal officials are falling short.
These conversations have been edited for length and clarity.
What are your thoughts after the shooting?
My immediate thoughts are just obviously with the families and friends and the community of the folks who died last night. That's my immediate thought. Beyond that, it's hard. I'm both a rabbi and I'm just a Jew living in DC. On the personal level, just like any other Jewish person in DC, in this country, it's scary to think that we'd be targeted for being in a Jewish space. As a rabbi, I'm showing up in Jewish spaces on a regular basis. I'm publicly identified as Jewish. So that's scary.
There's also feelings of anger. This is the natural outgrowth of hateful rhetoric that we've been seeing from all kinds of different groups in this country. Jews know from our history that hateful rhetoric leads to hateful action. You see that playing out last night.
As a rabbi, I've got this added burden of trying to make meaning of this moment. I'm not sure what meaning there is. It's pretty senseless. It's pretty painful. I can say with confidence that violent political action is not going to move us toward peace. It's not going to heal anything. That's the one thing I'm clear on. I'm not clear on a lot else, to be honest.
What's it been like to be a rabbi during the last year and a half when there's been an increase in anti-Semitic activity?
It's not been easy. Being a rabbi, being a spiritual leader, is always tough. But when you have that added layer of feeling like there's increased hate toward this group of people that you're spiritually leading, that just adds to a whole other set of challenges. It would be nice to be able to just focus on helping people deal with the issues they're struggling with, beyond these massive global conflicts that we didn't sign up for.
Jews have a way of showing up in times of crisis which I think is a beautiful instinct. So part of my work in the last year and a half has been helping people show up and connect—to fight the instinct to self isolate. But again I don't really have the answers of how to make sense of everything that is going on, how to care for ourselves and our immediate loved ones and community while also dealing with the broader political shifts and challenges. It's been an exhausting time as a rabbi, but, I think I speak for the folks in my community, it's just been exhausting for everyone.
Have you seen members of your community make changes to how they go about their lives for the last year and a half because of that increased sense of threat and anti-Semitic rhetoric and action?
I have, but maybe not in the way you are expecting. I have seen people commit more to their Judaism, to feeling like now more than ever, we need to show up for one another, fight for a just world that we believe in, stand for our values, unapologetically display our Judaism. I've been really inspired by the people I serve. There's obviously fear, but I've seen a refusal to be defined by that fear.
The Trump administration has been putting pressure on universities to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests. Has that been helpful?
It has not, in my opinion. I know there are other Jews who disagree with me, but from where I'm sitting, that is very clear weaponizing of anti-Semitism to promote the Trump administration's agenda. I gave a sermon about it a month or so ago. Project Esther is truly horrifying. I recommend everyone read it. I recommend every Jew read it. It does not speak for me. It does not speak for my community. It does not speak for the majority of Jews in America. Using a very real threat of anti-Semitism to promote a very particular and hateful agenda is not going to help anyone, including Jews in America.
I would like to see a more holistic approach to combating anti-Semitism in pro-Palestinian camps—I don't want to dismiss that. But here is a lot of anti-Semitism on the right from white nationalists, and there's not one word about that in Project Esther's very long document. And that is very discouraging and disappointing.
What more can be done to protect the Jewish community in the country?
At the risk of sounding cliché, we need to stand up to hateful rhetoric wherever we see it, and not just as it relates to Jews. Hateful rhetoric just makes everything more volatile and more dangerous for everyone. I think marginalized communities need to stand together in solidarity and realize that white nationalism and the type of movements that are seeking to eliminate difference—that will target all of us.
I think appreciating and fighting for a vision of America that celebrates democracy, that celebrates differences in viewpoints—it seems obvious when I say it out loud—but this is the America that I believe in. This is the America that has been so good to Jews in this country, and an America that does not embrace difference and diversity is a dangerous direction for this country for Jews and everyone.
Anything else?
Part of what makes this moment so painful is, on one hand, you see the very real impact of anti-Semitism, of hateful rhetoric, and on the other hand, I'm very concerned about the way that last night's events and other such anti-Semitic events are going to be co-opted by people who do not have the best intentions.
Tell me about this moment and what you're hearing from the community?
Let me start by saying this is something I haven't stopped thinking about since I heard about it. It's been devastating, completely devastating. It's just horrific. It's a nightmare. I've been in the city for over 20 years. The mayor and I have a long friendship. I voted for her several times. But I'm deeply disappointed. I said that to her. She had a gathering today, and I said I'd like to see some introspection from you. Obviously the person who pulled that trigger was a murderer, is a murderer, and even if you've got the best security in the world, it might not have prevented that. But the mayor, I think, has fallen short, in general, in working to protect the Jewish community in DC, in creating an environment where the Jews of DC feel safe.
I'm working on a letter, literally the second before you called, asking the attorney general to conduct a federal investigation of the DC police department because I have concerns.
I know many people have told me they don't feel safe in the streets of DC. That's because the mayor has taken a policy that has not enforced the law when it comes to the protection of the Jewish people from these very intimidating, harassing anti-Semitic protestors. I'm asking the attorney general to look into this, to tell us what's going on, and for there to be a federal investigation into it, because there was an environment here where I did not feel safe, many Jews in DC did not feel safe and the mayor bears some responsibility for that.
Have you seen members of the community make changes in how they go about their lives because of that fear and concern?
For sure people have made changes about how they go about their lives, without any question. I know I've made changes, so I think for sure people have made changes. People have told me about how they are afraid to wear their kippah … on their head. People have told me they are afraid to walk the streets of DC.
What would you like to see the DC police and federal government do now that they are not doing at the moment?
I want to see that they protect the law and make sure that the Jewish community feels safe, that they stop the harassment, intimidation, the threats. I'd like to see that whoever was in charge of making these policies be removed from their position.
The Trump Administration is putting pressure on universities to crack down on protests. Do you think that's helpful?
I think that DC is a city on a hill. People are looking at DC and seeing inaction at best and malevolence at worst, and they're worried from it. So I think the federal government should make an example of DC and should say, 'Let's look at their policies, are they helpful, protective of the Jewish community?' I think the federal government should step in here because the mayor did not do a good job.
Do you have a message for the Jewish community in the US in the wake of this shooting?
Now is not the time to be silent. Now is the time to demand more from our elected officials. Now is the time to be vigilant and to open up our voices. We are crying today at this senseless attack, this vicious attack, and we cannot just cry, we have to raise our voices and demand that the Jewish community receives full protection.
What have your thoughts been after the targeted murders outside the Capital Jewish Museum?
First of all, just tragic, these two young people about to get engaged and in the prime of their lives—their lives were just taken away from them. We have to just have a moment of recognizing the tragedy for their families and their friends. And then, of course, in the broader context, anti-Semitism has risen over the last couple of years and some of it has emerged from anger about the war, And certainly anger about the war and the way Israel has carried out the war is justified, but that should not translate into anger or violence against Jews.
In the last couple of years, the real fear in the Jewish community has been growing steadily. I think that many of us hoped that we wouldn't end up with a situation like this but also understood it could happen and feared that it would happen. There's a line in Proverbs that says that, 'Death and life are in the hands of the tongue'. And unfortunately it's true that violent speech and specifically speech that dehumanizes Jews and dehumanizes Israelis and justifies their killing—unfortunately there are some people that will take that and turn it into action.
Have you seen members of your community make changes to how they go about their lives?
I think the Jewish community has certainly been investing a lot more in security. Every synagogue that you go into, every Jewish institution, has a lot more security than they would have a couple of years ago. I think that now people might be looking behind them when they leave a Jewish event, which is really horrible and tragic.
At the same time, for many in the Jewish community, this is not the hardest moment in Jewish history. Unfortunately there have been many, many hard moments in Jewish history, and it sort of defies logic that Jews have even survived. And so also for many Jews it is the moment to really dig in and be joyful and to celebrate their Judaism.
I spent the afternoon at an ordination ceremony of new Conservative rabbis and cantors. And there's so much joy there because here's people who are starting out their careers as rabbis and cantors and who chose that career because they want to serve the Jewish people. It was a reminder that many Jews continue to recommit and reengage.
As you know, the Trump administration has been putting pressure on universities to crack down on pro-Palestinian protests, what kind of impact has that had? Has that been helpful to the Jewish community?
That is absolutely not helpful. The Trump administration does not actually care about Jews and it doesn't care about preventing anti-Semitism and we know that in part because Trump is empowering white nationalists—he pardoned the January 6th offenders. We saw there were horrific murders of Jews in the first Trump administration in Pittsburgh and Poway and a lot of white nationalist violence against Black people in Buffalo and Latinos in El Paso in a Walmart.
We know that he is not actually interested in fighting anti-Semitism.
We also know that for all of his talk about protecting students at universities, he closed down the Office for Civil Rights which is the office at the Department of Education that would actually investigate a bias complaint.
What he's doing now is using Jews as a wedge to undermine democracy and do what he actually wants to do, which is to take down universities. That's what autocrats always do, right? That's what we saw with Orban in Hungary and Erdogan, is you go after universities because they are places of free expression and critical thinking. So that's his real interest. It's about closing down DEI programs. In Hungary, we saw Orban eliminate women and gender studies. This is preventing universities from caring for their LGBT students, their trans students in particular. So this is certainly not helping Jews to basically dismantle democracy and defund universities.
What kind of things can be done to protect the Jewish community in America?
Jewish communities have always been safest in places with strong protections for individual liberties, for religious freedom, for freedom of speech, for democracy. So really, protecting those institutions which are what has made Jews safe in this country is what's going to keep Jews safe.
Anything else you'd like to add?
First, there's absolutely no justification for the murders that happened last night. And there's no justification based on the war. I know there are some people who say maybe it wasn't anti-Semitic, it was political. No. It was 100% an anti-Semitic crime. There's no equivocating about that. It was an attack outside of a Jewish museum, outside of a Jewish event.
And there's some people who want to use these attacks to shut down all pro-Palestianian activism, to try to enforce greater restrictions on free speech. That is also the wrong response. We can be really careful to define what is criticism of Israel, the way you would criticize any country including the United States, and what is anti-Semitism, which includes the dehumanization of Jews and Israelis, justifying violence against them. We can be really crystal clear about that.
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