23-05-2025
Slain Israeli Embassy staffer Sarah Milgrim spoke out over antisemitic messages at high school 8 years before fatal shooting
Slain Israeli Embassy staffer Sarah Milgrim once spoke out against hateful antisemitic graffiti at her high school nearly a decade before she was killed in a terrorist attack outside the Capital Jewish Museum.
Milgrim, then a 17-year-old senior, voiced her concerns about the sickening messages and symbols — which included a swastika — that were painted on a storage shed on the campus of Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kan., in February 2017.
'It's so ignorant that you would bring up a symbol like that brings so much pain to a lot of people. It's not OK,' Milgrim told KSHB 41 in a resurfaced interview.
7 Sarah Milgrim is interviewed outside Shawnee Mission East High School after antisemitic graffiti was found on a shed in February 2017.
KSHB 41/ YouTube
The messages included 'East Loves Nazi,' 'Hillary won LOL' and 'Luck the Fancers' a play on words insult to the school's mascot the Lancer, in pre basketball game rivalry stunt.
Four swastikas were painted alongside the texts in black paint.
Milgrim had said the antisemitic tags outside the school caused her to fear for her safety.
'I worry about going to my synagogue and now I have to worry about safety at school and that shouldn't be a thing,' she told the outlet.
Robert Milgrim said his daughter tried to turn the hateful messages into a chance to better the world., resulting in her taking a job with the Israeli Embassy in an effort to encourage peace in the Middle East.
'I can't say it bounced off her, but she accepted it,' the elder Milgrim told KSHB Thursday. 'She understood it and tried to be a good example so that maybe there would be less antisemitism. It didn't turn out very well for her.'
7 Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim were gunned down in the streets of Washington, DC, on May 21, 2025.
Obtained by NYPost.
7 The hateful graffiti sprawled across a wall of a storage shed on the campus of Shawnee Mission East High School in Prairie Village, Kan.
KSHB 41/ YouTube
A former football player from Shawnee Mission South High was charged with vandalism in connection to the incident in March 2017, the Kansas City Star reported.
Milgrim graduated from the school three months later before attending the University of Kansas where she earned a bachelor's in environmental studies.
She later received a master's in international affairs from American University and a master's in natural resources and sustainable development from the University for Peace in Costa Rica.
7 Milgrim met Lischinsky just after beginning work in the embassy's Department of Public Diplomacy.
@yaron_li/X
7 Milgrim graduated from the school three months later before attending the University of Kansas where she earned a bachelor's in environmental studies.
KSHB 41/ YouTube
Milgrim began working at the Israeli Embassy in DC a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, her father told KSHB.
'She had a passion for learning, she had a passion for the environment and she had a passion for Israel,' Robert Milgrim said.
Milgrim and her boyfriend, Yaron Lischinsky, 28, were gunned down in the streets of Washington DC Wednesday night after leaving the American Jewish Committee's ACCESS Young Diplomats Reception.
Follow The Post's coverage on Israeli Embassy staffers killed in DC
Suspected terrorist Elias Rodriguez, 31, was pacing outside the museum before he approached the couple and two other people and fired off 21 shots from his handgun.
Milgrim met Lischinsky just after beginning work in the embassy's Department of Public Diplomacy.
Lischinsky, a research assistant in the embassy's Political Department, had planned on proposing to Milgrim during their upcoming trip to Jerusalem.
'They made each other very happy,' Robert Milgrim said. 'We grew to love him also. They were perfect for each other.'
7 A makeshift memorial for Lischinsky and Milgrim is set up outside the White House on May 22, 2025.
AP
7 Lischinsky and Milgrim pose for a photo with Israeli President Isaac Herzog during a visit to the Israeli Embassy in DC in November 2024.
Sarah Milgrim / Linkedin
Rodriguez was charged with first-degree murder, murder of foreign officials, causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm and discharge of a firearm during a crime of violence in federal court on Thursday.
He appeared in court wearing a white jumpsuit and told the judge he was not under the influence of drugs or alcohol during the hate-fueled attack — for which he faces multiple life sentences and the death penalty.
