WHAT’S DRIVING THE AMERICAN JEWISH CONVERSATION

Special edition: American Jews are waking up this morning to the news of a deadly shooting. We’ve got complete coverage below, followed by the rest of the news you need this morning.

D.C. SHOOTING

The scene in the aftermath of the shooting last night. (Getty)

Fatal shooting at Capital Jewish Museum in D.C.

Two Israeli embassy staffers were shot at close range and killed Wednesday night outside the Capital Jewish Museum, where they had just attended an American Jewish Committee event for young Jewish professionals and diplomats.

The sole suspect, 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez of Chicago, is in custody. Witnesses said he pulled out a red kaffiyeh and shouted “Free Palestine” and “I did it for Gaza” after confessing to the shooting.

Learn more about the shooting ►

Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky in an undated photo. The two were killed Wednesday night. (Courtesy Israeli Embassy)

The victims…

Yaron Lischinsky, 28, a research assistant at the Israeli embassy, and Sarah Milgrim, who worked in public diplomacy, were both dedicated to peacebuilding efforts. The couple was planning to get engaged on a trip next week to Jerusalem.

• Lischinsky described himself in his LinkedIn bio as “an ardent believer” in the Abraham Accords — and said he advocated “for interfaith dialogue and intercultural understanding.”

  
  

• Milgrim grew up in the Kansas City suburbs and was a teenager when a white supremacist shot and killed three people at Jewish institutions in that city. She was active in responding after swastikas were painted at her high school. “I worry about going to my synagogue and now I have to worry about safety at my school and that shouldn’t be a thing,” she told a local news station at the time.

Learn more about the victims ►

The suspect…

Rodriguez was reportedly affiliated with a far-left group that supported Palestinian causes.

• An online footprint of someone that appears to be him links to the Party for Socialism and Liberation, an American organization that describes itself as a “revolutionary socialist party.” It was a leader of the PSL, Eugene Puryear, who at a Times Square rally on Oct. 8, 2023, mocked Hamas’ massacre of some 270 attendees of the Nova music festival the day before.

  
  

• On Wednesday, before the shooting, the group urged supporters to sign a pledge to help stop what it called Israel’s “genocide” of Palestinians.

Learn more about the suspect ►

The Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C. (Getty)

The response…

• Attorney General Pam Bondi was on the scene coordinating with police, the FBI, and by phone with President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who said he was “outraged” over the killings and directed that security be tightened at Israeli embassies and consulates worldwide.

  
  

• Secretary of State Marco Rubio, writing on social media, called the attack “a brazen act of cowardly, antisemitic violence. Make no mistake: we will track down those responsible and bring them to justice.”

  
  

• Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish elected official in U.S. history, said “this sickening shooting seems to be another horrific instance of antisemitism which as we know is all too rampant in our society.”

Read more responses ►

Zooming out…

• The shooting is the latest fatal attack on a Jewish institution. The deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history occurred in 2018, when a gunman killed 11 Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. The following year saw three more fatal attacks on a synagogue in California, a rabbi’s house in New York and a kosher supermarket in New Jersey.

  
  

• Since then, and including over the last 19 months since the start of the war in Gaza, Jewish institutions have bolstered their security. The Capital Jewish Museum, which opened in 2023, had just gotten a security grant from Washington, D.C., this week.

Opinion | How anti-Israel rhetoric led to the killing of two Jews in Washington, D.C.:  Rodriguez wasn’t just a lone actor — he was steeped in a movement that blurs the line between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and is “poisoned by violence and hatred,” writes our senior columnist, Rob Eshman. He adds: “The street and campus protesters and the social media warriors think nothing of claiming Israel has no right to exist — a specious idea whose logical extension is that, therefore, no Israeli has the right to exist.” Read his essay ►

Catch up on all of our coverage of the Capitol Jewish Museum shooting ►

From our Sponsor, Sparta

CAMPUS

A student shouts as Claire Shipman, Columbia University’s acting president, speaks at Wednesday’s commencement ceremony. (Getty)

The latest…

• Mahmoud Khalil, a Columbia graduate student who took a leading role in campus pro-Palestinian protests and has been detained by immigration officials since March, missed his commencement ceremony on Wednesday. His absence loomed large at the event. (Forward)

  
  

• George Washington University says it will bar a student from campus after she used her commencement speech to condemn what she called a “genocide” in Gaza and urged fellow graduates to withhold donations until the university cuts financial ties with Israel. (JTA)

  
  

• Northwestern University is set to expand its Jewish studies program and improve Jewish student life on campus, thanks to an anonymous donation — as it faces federal investigations over allegations of “antisemitic harassment and discrimination.” (WTTW)

Opinion | We are Jewish students from universities Trump is targeting. He’s not protecting us: “The president and his allies are using our pain as a pretext for an assault on higher education we didn’t ask for. It is only making the situation on campus worse,” write 10 students from Harvard, Columbia, UCLA and other schools. “Our community has a long history of standing up to pharaohs.”Read their essay ►

WHAT ELSE YOU NEED TO KNOW TODAY

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth at the White House Easter Egg Roll in April. (Getty)

Politics…

✝️  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth held a Christian prayer service inside the Pentagon Wednesday, where participants praised President Trump as a leader chosen by God. (New York Times)

Related ► Hegseth has views that are consistent with a strain of Christian nationalism that believes in applying biblical laws to modern life. He also has a number of Christian and Crusades-inspired tattoos.

🧐  Zohran Mamdani, polling in second place in the Democratic primary for New York mayor, is under scrutiny from his hard-line anti-Israel base for saying the Jewish state has a right to exist. (Forward)

📹  A man appointed to an advisory panel by Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has resigned following backlash over a 2023 video showing him ripping down posters of Israeli hostages. (JTA)

Israel…

🇮🇱  Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel is asserting full control over Gaza and won’t end the war without advancing what he described as the “Trump plan” — a proposal to promote voluntary migration out of the territory. (JTA)

🎸  A member of the Irish rap group Kneecap has been charged with a terrorism offense after waving a Hezbollah flag during a London concert last year — and just weeks after the group projected “F— Israel” at Coachella. (JTA)

And elsewhere…

🌍  A hundred years after the 1925 Scopes Trial, a significant number of American adults still believe in creationism — the idea that the Earth and humanity were formed exactly as described in the Book of Genesis. (AP)

🌊  This ideology is on full display at a Kentucky theme park that attempts to prove God’s hand in creation. At its centerpiece is a replica of Noah’s Ark that stretches longer than a football field. (AP)

📚 A debut novel centered on a Ukrainian Jewish World War II veteran and long-buried family secrets has won the 2025 Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature. (JTA)

VIDEO OF THE DAY

Sneak peek: Jewish actors Emile Hirsch and Inbar Lavi star in an upcoming film about artist Joseph Bau, who survived the Holocaust with the help of Oskar Schindler. The movie arrives in theaters Sept. 24.

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🤓 Confident I understand issues impacting American Jews.

🔗 Connected to the Jewish world.

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🤷🏽‍♀️ No different.

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