Murdered Israeli Embassy staffer believed in Jesus, peace

Mariam Wahba didn’t know much about Yaron Lischinsky the first time they met. They connected online over similar work in Middle East foreign policy. But as the two began talking over a drink, Wahba said, the conversation eventually turned to one of her favorite topics: early Christian theology. When she mentioned that the Council of Nicaea began in A.D. 425, Lischinsky corrected her. The council was held in 325, he said. Eventually, he shared that he was a practicing Christian, Wahba said.

Wahba is a Coptic Christian, originally from Egypt, who works for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies as a research analyst. She first befriended Lischinsky about two years ago. They often debated early Christian theology and discussed how to navigate faith and policy work. When Wahba heard about an incident at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., late Wednesday night, her first thought was to text Lischinsky in the morning and ask him what happened.

But she woke to the news that Lischinsky was dead. He and his girlfriend, Sarah Milgrim, were fatally shot as they left an event at the museum on Wednesday. The suspected attacker, 31-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, shouted, “Free, free Palestine” after opening fire, according to Metropolitan Police Chief Pamela Smith. Lischinsky had purchased a ring days earlier and was preparing to propose to Milgrim in Jerusalem, Israeli ambassador Yechiel Leiter said.

Lischinsky and his family moved to Israel from Germany when he was in high school. They attended a Messianic congregation in Jerusalem called Melech Hamlachim, Sandy Shoshani, a ministry leader at the congregation, told me. Lischinsky was an active member of the congregation throughout high school and college before moving away for his master’s studies. Shoshani said he served in the congregation and attended youth conferences with other young Messianic Jews.

Melech Hamlachim means “King of Kings” in Hebrew. The congregation meets every Friday afternoon for worship and Bible teaching before Shabbat, or the Jewish Sabbath, begins on Friday evening. Messianic Jews celebrate Jewish religious holidays and observe the Sabbath on Saturday “because we are Jewish, and so is Jesus,” Shoshani said.

Messianic Jews tend to use that label rather than refer to themselves as Christian, according to Oded Shoshani, Sandy’s husband and a leader of the congregation. “The word ‘Christian’ in Israel has a derogatory meaning, of people who persecuted the Jews over the centuries,” he said. Wahba said Lischinsky referred to himself as a Christian. Wahba declined to discuss his girlfriend Milgrim’s faith because she didn’t know her well. Milgrim grew up attending a Jewish congregation and was involved with the LGBTQ-friendly synagogue Bet Mishpachah in Washington, according to Jewish publication Forward. Messianic Jewish musician Misha Goetz, who lives in the Washington area and has met Milgrim, posted Friday on Facebook that she believed Milgrim also became a Messianic Jew sometime in the past year.

Lischinsky had a peaceful, pluralistic vision for the Middle East, Wahba said. “Yaron was a peacemaker, and he saw that role as kind of his life mission,” she said. “He wanted to explain the Jewish state to people … and I think he saw that as part of being his role and duty as a Christian.”

Wahba said she and her family moved to the United States to escape religious persecution in Egypt. Increasing acceptance of anti-Semitic violence scares her, she said, “because I see the outside evils that America was a safe haven from creep into our culture and our society.”

There’s no great distance between protests at colleges like Columbia University and her friend’s death, Wahba said: “Words may not seem that dangerous, but the actions that follow those words are very dangerous. When you chant things like ‘resistance at all costs’ … people will take actions that they think [are] resistance, including murdering innocent civilians.”